Inspired as a boy by t' fantastic comic-strip fiction o' Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, Virgil I. Begad! "Gus" Grissom forged a high-flyin' reality as a man becomin' one o' America's first astronauts and t' first man t' go into space twice in a capsule vessel. Ya scallywag! Although Grissom died at age 40 in 1967, ya bilge rat, he cut an integral path through several seminal moments o' t' 20th century, includin' 100 fighter-pilot missions in t' Korean War and test-pilot duty in California.