Introduction
Hello and welcome to my website Spacebase .Org.Uk. This site is getting ready for lift off! Spacebase has been created and designed for those of you like me who have a fascination for space history, and who enjoy a genuine interest in those men and women who have captured our imaginations over the last five decades by their dedication to space travel. Not just Astronauts and Aviators, but also many important innovators who paved the way for those early space missions to take off, and all those Shuttle missions that still return.
Both now, and in the near future we will experience the very real advent of public space travel as aviators such as Brian Binnie prove to the watching world that one day soon space travel will be affordable, and hopefully secure for those who wish to experience it. We must remember that it was only in 1961 that President J F Kennedy spoke to the listening world with his vision of a man walking on the Lunar surface by the end of that decade. Many scoffed at such an incredible claim, but under ten years later, and being spurred on by the Russian competition and proven achievements (Gagarin) it was just so.
Even today many do not believe it was for real, and that it was perhaps a great publicity attempt to gain consumer confidence and justification of the emmense budget it took out of taxpayers pockets. The real truth perhaps I would suggest lies with all those men and women who enabled each space innovation to be researched, constructed, tested and flown. If Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins never made it in the minds of many, then there are indeed countless individuals who have kept an amazing secret for a very long time. Making them out to be liars is probably absurb and takes away achievements of all past and present citizens who helped to make space adventure a technically brilliant quest which has paved the way for the enhancement of much technology we take for granted today.
You will be able with Spacebase.org.uk to access autographed photos, letters and memorabilia from the history of Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Shuttle, and of course not forgetting the early and present day Cosmonauts, together with their links with the NASA space program. I hope you enjoy and appreciate too, the many historical Astronaut and Aviator autographed photos and interesting collectables I will be displaying in the gallery section from my personal collections. All the photos will come with biographical facts concerning those listed to give you a flavour of the immense history of Space Exploration. Please note some of the Apollo photos listed are photographed behind glass front frames, so, what with reflection they are not at present the best quality. This will be corrected hopefully in the near future. In the meantime Gary Cole welcomes you again at the start of a progressive , and I trust imformative journey with Spacebase.Org.Uk