Autographica this year was held at the Hilton Metropole in Birmingham and had five early US Astronauts in attendance. These included Tom Stafford, Al Worden, Vance Brand, Ed Gibson and Jack Lousma.
I got to Autographica at 10.15 when it opened and was surprised there was no queue to go in. I went straight to Skylab Astronaut Ed Gibson and he signed a picture of himself and my map on the moon. He was very friendly and happy to chat for a while.
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Next was Apollo Soyuz and Shuttle Astronaut Vance Brand. He signed a picture and my moon map and talked a while about the craters on the back side of the moon and how the Apollo 8 guys named them after their fellow Astronauts including him. Although he looked quite healthy he had a wrist brace on and looked to be struggling slightly to sign his name.
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Next I went over to see Gemini and Apollo Astronaut Tom Stafford, he signed my moon map and was very polite happily posing for a picture.
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The last Astronaut I wanted to meet was Jack Lousma who has flown on both Skylab and the Space Shuttle. He was very friendly and talked for a while as well as signing a photograph of himself and my moon map.
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I then went and got Michael Cochrane from TV shows such as Sharpe and Doctor Who. He was very friendly and talked for ages to the people in his line.
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And that was it for the autographs. It was now just photoshoots I needed. The admission ticket I had entitled me to 10 photos with guests all the Astronauts I wanted were at the end of the day so had to wait around the hotel until then (there are only so many times you can walk around the same handful of dealer stalls)!
I made use of the photo pass and had my pictures taken with Rusty Goffe, Guy Singer, Dave Prowse, Kenny Baker and Jeremy Bulloch.
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Then I had my photograph taken with the US Astronauts Tom Stafford, Jack Lousma, Al Worden, Vance Brand and Ed Gibson before coming home.
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