Also John Glenn. Obvious not prog but having just read his obit Joe Cool. I don't know if He was ever lucky enough to meet TA but he'd done everything else. RIP
The pleasure would all have been mine, had the opportunity arisen, but sadly it did not.
I've always been quite amused by the way that Glenn's Dudley Do-Right persona was portrayed in The Right Stuff, as played by Ed Harris, at least relative to some of the other more colourful characters amongst the Mercury 7.
But anyone strapping themselves to a repurposed ICBM with a pretty dubious reputation for reliability has my utmost admiration, and to go back and fly on the shuttle at 77, well, that's pretty special.