Most astronauts are right handed, and most crewed orbits are prograde. Who was the first retro lefty?
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Have there been any crewed retrograde orbits? I'm not seeing any orbital inclinations over about 65° – notovny Apr 29 '23 at 16:17
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7Re-researching; Yes, there have... just not around Earth. The Apollo missions' Lunar orbits are all retrograde. – notovny Apr 29 '23 at 16:26
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With notovny's hint, I determined that retro lefty was Jim Lovell, flying in a retrograde orbit around the moon on Apollo 8.
Several photos of Lovell signing autographs show him holding a pen in his left hand, such as this one from the Wisconson Aviation Hall of Fame:
Russell Borogove
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Can you provide a reference that Jim Lovell is a lefty? He is often listed with other lefty Apollo astronauts, but these lists often contain errors. For instance, Buzz Aldrin is often described as a lefty despite published pictures of him signing with his right hand. – Woody Apr 30 '23 at 01:49
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Dozens of search engine hits for "left handed astronaut" and "left handed jim lovell", but I can't find anything particularly authoritative. (Some of them say "Buzz Aldrin was a native left-hander but changed to use his right hand", by the way.) – Russell Borogove Apr 30 '23 at 02:01
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2I found a photo of Lovell and Gene Kranz signing photos; Kranz has a pen in his right hand, Lovell has a pen in his left. – Russell Borogove Apr 30 '23 at 02:04
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2after shamelessly sharpening the image it looks like the shortened title on the spine of the book to Lovell's left is something like "Oshkosh 90" and looks like it might be this item in Amazon.com: EAA Oshkosh 1990: Gateway to Aviation my point being that the title of the book is not a mirror image, indicating this image wasn't inadvertently reversed during the publication process, meaning that it's good evidence. – uhoh Apr 30 '23 at 21:38
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I found enough different Lovell-signing-things photos that I figured they couldn't all be flipped. – Russell Borogove May 01 '23 at 05:01
