Iktol of Planet X? Lawrence of Arabia? Nope. Just two of those 14 new U.S. astronauts in training for adventures in outer space. There was Rand Scientist Walter Cunningham, 32, having his temperature taken after a brisk workout in his moon suit. And in Nevada, Navy Pilot Alan Bean, 32, was sporting a turban fashioned from a parachute just in case he ever has to make an unscheduled desert landing.

He had been meaning to get around to it, but what with one thing and another Robert Goldwater, 54, president of the Goldwater stores, had never joined brother Barry's party. In fact, he was still a registered Democrat. Now he was correcting the oversight. "I am registering as a Republican," he explained in Phoenix, "because I believe in the party's principles as they are today."

Friday's child is loving and giving. That is how the old saw sees it, anyhow. But that seemed soupy to Susan Ker Weld's mother, so she decided to pay no attention to her daughter's day of birth and nicknamed her Tuesday instead. "It's from the goddess, Tues,"-boasts the now grown-up starlet. In any case, it all happened 21 years ago, and in celebration of the event last week, Tuesday hefted a gift bottle of champagne. "I now can drink it legally. I may visit every bar on Sunset Strip," she crowed. "And then again I may not," she added quickly. For Tuesday's child, to return again to the always seeing saw, is nothing if not full of grace.

Honored by the Building Stone Institute as "Architect of the Year," Edward Durell Stone, 62, decided to repay the kudos by heaving a few rocks of his own. Deploring the architecture of mid-century America, he teed off on "the colossal mess we've made of the face of this country. Everything betrays us as a bunch of catchpenny materialists devoted to a blatant, screeching insistence on commercialism." Jeepers! And what was this awful "everything?" Why, all this glass and metal--so cheap looking and impermanent. "Permanence is my obsession, and permanence is associated with the use of stone, not glass or tin or architectural frills. If you give a damn, it makes you want to commit suicide." Thank you, Mr. Stone.

It is still something of an inconvenience to be robbed, but these yeggs were trying to be as nice as possible about it. When two masked burglars broke into the 25-room Tarrytown, N.Y., summer home of Multimillionaire Samuel Bronfman, 73, president of Distillers Corp.-Seagram, Ltd., they awakened the Bronfmans with valet smoothness. Would Mrs. Bronfman "please" open the closet safe? It was hard to refuse that kind of a request, especially when one of the hoods was waving a pistol, so Mrs. Bronfman did. Whereupon the men tied the couple to a bathroom sink, solicitously inquired whether the bonds were too tight, bid all a cheery good night, and stole off on catlike feet with jewelry totaling more than $200,000.

As battalions of sweating police struggled valiantly against the screaming hordes, the world's four most recognizable mop tops fought their way through a 30-day U.S. campaign. There were days when it looked like Custer's last stand, but only a few cupcakes breached the defenses for a private audience with the Beatles, and one was Folk Thrush Joan Baez, 23, who joined the barber shy quartet for a hootenanny in their Denver hotel room until 3 a.m. "They're great musicians," gushed Joan.

The concept was fiscally sound. While Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Reginald Maudling, 47, was in official residence at No. 11 Downing St. (next to the P.M., donchaknow), he subleased his own 14-room pad to Drama Student Paul Howes, 21, for 30 guineas ($90) a week. But it turned out to be only a middling Maudling idea. To help pay the rent, Howes took in five friends and two frails, and when a couple of too long, too loud parties drew complaints, there was no muddling Maudling. Howes was evicted. Sniped one of the also-flungs 'at the meddling Maudling: "Perhaps the real reason we're having to go is that he may need the flat back after the election."

There is nothing more endearing to the less-than-great than to hear the human foibles of the unquestioned great. On that score, Albert Einstein was one of the most endearing greats of all. And in this month's Harper's, Dr. Thomas Lee Bucky, son of Einstein's friend, Physician Gustav Bucky, fondly passes on some more of those myriad foibles. The professor read Emily Post for laughs, thought chess "unproductive," played a mediocre violin, felt two baths a week were sufficient, and never once displayed "jealousy, vanity, bitterness, anger, resentment or personal ambition." But most endearing of all, the nonpareil theorist couldn't figure out those scraggly toy birds that dip in and out of a bowl of water in perpetual motion. He spent several days trying to dope it out, but never found the answer. Reassuring, isn't it?

* Actually Tiw or Ti, the Germanic god, not goddess, of war; since the Roman god of war, Mars, had Dies Martii named after him, the Germans naturally did the same. Friday, on the other hand, comes from Frigg, the Germanic goddess of domesticity in marriage.

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