This is an IHeart podcast.

Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable. and if history is an open book, all of these

amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the

Cabinet of Curiosity's. John was sweating in his stiff uniform under the hot studio lights.

It was October 4th of 1957, and all that morning, he'd been focusing on music.

This wasn't unusual for John.

As a test pilot, his mind was usually on popular mechanics,

not popular songs. Today, however, he was turning in his pilot's license for a chance to compete

on a game show called Name That Tune. As the cameras started rolling and the orchestra played,

the host of the show introduced John and Eddie, the 10-year-old

boy who'd be his partner on the show that night. Noting that John was a military pilot,

the host went slightly off script to ask him a question that the entire audience was probably

wondering. What did he think of the Russian satellite that was circling the globe at that

very moment.

Beyond this being John's debut in Game Show stardom, October 4th of 1957 was the day that Russia launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite into orbit.

John smiled and responded that this marked the beginning of a new age of space travel,

one that perhaps his co-contestant Eddie would

participate in someday. John didn't know it yet, but it was he, not Eddie, that was about to

shoot for the stars. Growing up in Ohio, John had a fascination with planes from a young age. After

taking his first flight with his father at eight years old, he spent hours making

model planes and imagining flying them through the clouds. As he grew older, imagination turned

...