Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to host reveal of 2020 Chevy Corvette Stingray

Antonia Jaramillo
Florida Today

Jim Rathmann Jr. remembers when he was younger, the weekend barbecues and pool parties his family had back in the 1960s. Among those lounging in the backyard and drinking beers were some of the first American astronauts. 

"They were just friends ... just pals. They were at the house all the time because they were going back and forth from Houston," Rathmann Jr. told FLORIDA TODAY, chuckling at the notion he used to hang out with some of the first Americans to venture to space and yet at the time, he didn't fully comprehend that.

His dad, Jim Rathmann, who died in 2011, was a race car driver who won the Indianapolis 500 in 1960. The following year, he set up a Chevrolet-Cadillac dealership in Melbourne where he began leasing Corvettes for only $1 to some of the first astronauts, including the first and second Americans in space — Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom. 

Now, 50 years after Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon, General Motors is making the most of the astronaut's connection to the classic muscle car.

To celebrate the 2020 Corvette Stingray and highlight its connection to the space program, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex will host the reveal of the 2020 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Convertible Oct. 3 at the Rocket Garden. 

There will be two presentations, one at 11 a.m. and the other at 2 p.m. where Chevrolet experts and former astronauts Steve Smith and Bruce Melnick will discuss the car's relationship with American astronauts and the new commodities of the 2020 Stingray convertible, according to the visitor complex's press release

Other astronauts attending the presentations, although it's subject to change, include: Fred Gregory, Scott Altman, Frank Culbertson, Tom Henricks, Norm Thagard, John-David Bartoe, Mike McCulley, Winston Scott and Jon McBride, according to the release.

The event is included with daily admission, which costs $52 for adults and $42 for children if you use the discount code, Apollo, at checkout. Chevrolet will also be distributing posters to guests throughout the day. 

While those early astronauts and Corvettes became American icons, Rathmann Jr. didn't pay them too much mind back then. After all, he was only seven at the time.

"I wish I would've paid more attention when all this was going on, but when you're a kid ... you don't know to pay more attention, they're just other people that are at your house," he said.

It wasn't only six of the Mercury 7 astronauts who got 'Vettes from Rathmann (John Glenn opted for a Chevrolet station wagon instead), however. When the Apollo program began, Apollo 12 astronauts Dick Gordon, Charles Conrad and Alan Bean each got matching 1969 Corvettes through Rathmann, according to General Motors press release

"There was sort of a mutual attraction in that these guys were all test pilots," Rathmann Jr., who now lives in Denver, Colorado with his wife, Kathy and is writing a book about the auto industry said. "I mean, these are guys that didn't fear death. They were just these sort of crazy folks." 

Apollo 15 astronauts also had their own Corvettes, as did first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong.

"The Corvette was born in the mid-50s so there were a lot of folks that were World War II vets and Korea was happening and then the Cold War happened, there was a lot more pride in being an American than what there is now," Rathmann Jr. said. "To have a symbol like the Corvette, it was just, you know, you could show your patriotism ... by buying a Corvette." 

Both the space program and the Corvette are children of the 1950s that are still active today.

"Corvette is the original American sports car," Rathmann Jr. said. "To have (the space program) associated or affiliated or somehow unofficially affiliated with, arguably the greatest car to be built by an American manufacturer ... is just fabulous."

Contact Jaramillo at 321-242-3668 or antoniaj@floridatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter at @AntoniaJ_11.