Inspired as a boy by t' fantastic comic-strip fiction o' Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, Virgil I. Ya scallywag! "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. Although Grissom died at age 40 in 1967, 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.