Discovery. Challenger. Atlantis. Columbia. Endeavor. Enterprise. Those are the current shuttles. None are named after Gods, Greek or otherwise. In the early days NASA labeled missions with a combination of a mythological or astrological name – first Mercury, then Gemini, then Apollo – and a series number, but they allowed their astronauts to name the actual spacecraft. Every Mercury astronaut added the number 7 to his ship’s name to honor the team effort among its astronauts, now known as the “Original Seven.” They were: Alan B. Shepard Jr. (Freedom 7); Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom (Liberty Bell 7); John H. Glenn Jr. (Friendship 7); M. Scott Carpenter (Aurora 7); Walter M. “Wally” Schirra Jr. (Sigma 7); and L. Gordon “Gordo” Cooper Jr. (Faith 7).
:) This is really interesting. I love learning about this stuff, but haha, yeah, the article was just a fun one. The website itself is very nationalistic and their ancient Greek section was a poorly written bummer. Was hoping for a new RSS feed but this was the only article I saw that looked remotely interesting.
