Page 7 - Club Braman Magazine Fall / Winter 2018

A TALE OF EXCELLENCE... AND CONVERGENT TRAJECTORIES
Astronaut Robert Crippen, Veteran of Four
Shuttle Flights and Possessed of a Full Measure
of ‘The Right Stu ’, Turns to Braman BMW for
His Earth-bound Transportation
By Peter Frey
We here at Braman Motorcars like to consider ourselves the best of the best
in car dealerships; perennial contenders, capable in any given year of winning the world series, sta ed with All-Stars and Golden Glove winners working smoothly together to put you, our clients, together with exactly the right kind of high tech machinery needed to do the job you need doing... and ful ll your dreams on top of it.
So, one day thirteen years ago, a steely- eyed pro from another team – let’s call them the Astros for the moment – shows up and at rst we thought he might be ‘scouting the opposition.’ But no, turns out he’s pretty much past all that; just a
guy looking for a car -- inasmuch, that
is, as this guy could ever be ‘just a guy’
-- since not only does he know everything there is to know about world-caliber teams and high-tech machinery, but
he’s got career stats to make Babe Ruth swoon.
Such as: 6,500 hours as a pilot, including 5,500 in jet ghters; pilot of the rst-ever Space Shuttle mission; Commander of three additional Shuttle missions; 565 hours in space, 374 orbits of the earth; 9.4 million miles traveled.
And after his out-of-this-world adventures were over? Director of the NASA Space Shuttle Program; Director of the Kennedy Space Center; President of the Thiokol Propulsion Group; Fellow, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics; American Astronautical Society; and So- ciety of Experimental Test Pilots. Winner of twenty of the most prestigious medals awarded to pilots and astronauts... and as if that weren’t enough, he even has his own G.I. Joe action gure and an elemen- tary school named after him in his home town (true story, Google it).
So, not an Astro (though he is a Texan), but an actual Astronaut, Robert Crippen (Captain, US Navy, Ret.), who, after he retired in 2001, packed up the memories and memorabilia of a lifetime of adven- ture and moved to Palm Beach Gardens. And then he needs a car, of course. So where does he go? Why, to Braman BMW, of course.
“I’m not all that wrapped up in cars, though I’ve been through a variety of Continued on page 55.
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