1963 Chevrolet Corvette - The Astro Vette

For the most part, the people of the world go about the business of their lives without giving conscious thought to the historical importance of what's happening around them. There are times, however, when the shear magnitude of current events leaves no doubt that history is being made. Such was certainly the case during the late '50s, throughout the '60s, and into the early '70s, when the United States took up the challenge of manned spaceflight. The mere fact that men were leaving the confines of Mother Earth was enough to inform the world that important history was being made. And when President Kennedy set landing on the moon by the end of the '60s as NASA's goal, the events that followed couldn't help but take on mythic proportions. The prospect of not only leaving the Earth, but of actually setting foot on another world, was nothing short of incredible.

The young men who chose to accept the challenge became national heroes. They were, after all, facing a dangerous unknown-outer space. Today's Space Shuttle flights may appear routine, but the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo flights were anything but. Accordingly, the men chosen were accustomed to dealing with danger and challenges as military aviators and test pilots. Testing the limits of man and machine was their business. They faced the challenges and succeeded, accomplishing what was thought impossible and becoming American legends in the process.

It's only natural that many of the men who pushed the limits of speed and performance in state of the art air and space vehicles would want high levels of both in their automobiles, leading America's early astronauts to become linked with another American legend, the Corvette. Navy pilot Alan Shepard, one of the original "Mercury Seven," was on his second Corvette, a '57, when he joined the space program in April, 1959. Shepard loved fast cars, and his affinity for Corvette (he'd also owned a '53) didn't go unnoticed by Chief Engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov. Duntov even brought Shepard to Detroit to test-drive pre-production models. Despite the status and celebrity of the new astronauts, the idea of giving any of them a Corvette was anathema to The General. Sometime after Shepard's first suborbital flight, GM President Ed Cole decided that Shepard should receive a Corvette, which he did-a '62, with a deluxe Bill Mitchell interior.

Though it was out of character for GM to give away cars, Cole's decision to do so, according to his widow, Dollie (Chairman of the National Corvette Museum and Vice Chairman of the National Air & Space Museum), it made perfect sense. "The astronauts were incredibly visible," she recalls. "And good publicity is good publicity." Putting an astronauts in Corvettes wasn't just a publicity stunt, though. "Who more worthy than guys who represent our country?" Dollie declares. "They were literally risking their lives. Space travel today isn't 'ho hum', but people perceive it that way. There were so many unknowns then. The cars were a way of saying 'Thank you.'"

The astronauts could not make product endorsements, however, so Shepard's deal was a one-time-only affair-until Jim Rathman got involved. Rathman, a Chevrolet and Cadillac dealer in Melbourne, Florida (and winner of the 1960 Indy 500), met and became friends with Shepard and fellow Mercury astronaut (and high-performance car enthusiast) Gus Grissom. Rathman approached Ed Cole about setting up the astronauts with an executive lease program, and the longtime link between astronaut and Corvette was born.