Seeing as how the seventh-generation Corvette will make its world debut Sunday, this seems appropriate, from Corvette Online:

Corvettes have always been something to be admired, as they’re generally driven by people who are in a certain position in life. Usually the discerning Corvette owner is someone who appreciates performance, good looks, and sex appeal, and they’re almost always at a position in life where they actually have the cash required to own a Corvette. That means that most Vettes are not driven by kids in their teens, or even by a lot of people still in their 20′s. Corvettes are driven by successful people. People who have taken risks, and won. People that have made it.

With all of that being said, it should come as no surprise to you that the car of choice by astronauts in the 1960′s was (drumroll please) none other than the Corvette. Astronauts were men that were front and center in the public eye and were symbols of bravery, risk taking, and all out coolness.  They hadmade it. They were bigger than rock stars in the United States, at least for a time, and General Motors waned to make sure that the world saw them driving the fastest, coolest, bravest car around, the Corvette.

The program started with the first U.S. astronaut to escape (briefly) Earth orbit, Alan Shepard:

GM saw both a service and a marketing opportunity with the astronauts’ fame. GM President Ed Cole gave Alan Shepard, the first American in space, a 1962 Corvette as a gift for his service to his country, though it was not in character for GM to give away cars; not even to astronauts. According to Dollie Cole, Ed Cole’s widow, the gift made perfect sense, despite GM’s normal tendency to avoid things like that. “The astronauts were incredibly visible,” she recalled in an interview recently re-published on VetteWeb.com. “And good publicity is good publicity.”

She felt the Corvettes were more than a publicity stunt, but were actually a gift of appreciation. “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.’”

Aside from Shepard, no astronaut was given a Corvette from GM, and for one big reason that had nothing to do with GM policy; it turned out that astronauts were not allowed to take gifts or do endorsements. That being said, they could lease cars at exceptional rates and thus the $1 astronaut lease program was born.

I met Scott Carpenter when he gave a speech at UW–Platteville in the late 1980s. I wish I’d known about the Corvette thing then. (The $1 rental thing is probably the only way I could ever afford a Corvette.)

Carpenter’s fellow Mercury astronaut, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, decided his $1 Vette needed a little work:

It turned out that the Corvette was the perfect car for space jockeys with a flair for speed, danger, and competition. Gus Grissom, the second American in space, loved his Corvette’s dearly, but hated losing drag races to his fellow astronauts. In the fall of 1966 both he and fellow astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, took delivery of identical brand new 1967 427/435 horsepower Corvette Roadsters. Grissom hated losing races to Shepard so he asked Jim Rathmann, owner of Jim Rathmann Chevrolet/Cadillac in Melbourne, FL to help him with his new Corvette. According to gusgrissomcorvette.com, Rathmann obliged and ever-so-slightly widened the rear wheel openings to allow room for bigger tires and put in a 4:56 posi rear end. Grissom won nearly every race against Shepard as a result, and we have no idea if Alan Shepard ever knew of the modifications!

As Mercury became Gemini and then Apollo, the program continued:

It seemed that all astronauts had a Corvette somewhere in the mix. Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, had a Corvette. Jim Lovell, the Commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, had a Corvette. But perhaps the most interest Astronaut/Corvette story came with the crew of Apollo 12, because they acquired matching Corvettes! Apollo 12 launched for the moon on November 14, 1969 and it’s members were Mission Commander Pete Conrad, Lunar Module Pilot, Al Bean, and Command Module Pilot Dick Gordon. The three were close knit and remained friends even after their NASA days.

The idea of matching cars was unique to the Apollo 12 crew as no other Apollo team did it, despite the fact that it was common for them to be driving a Corvette. In the aforementioned interview, Al Bean recalled the situation. “We liked the idea. It was a way to be a team and build esprit de corps. We all talked about it, and the first couple of ideas didn’t work.” The Corvettes that the astronauts chose were a trio of identical Riverside Gold ’69 coupes. Each was equipped with the stock 427 CI/390HP engine, had Head Restraints (RPO A82), 4-Season Air Conditioning (RPO C60), Special Wheel Covers (RPO PO2), and the AM/FM Pushbutton Radio (RPO U69).

The story doesn’t say, but one assumes they were all correctly equipped with four-speed manual transmissions. And since the Apollo missions launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida, air conditioning was a wise choice.