Overview

“What, not another space saga!” For six years, the public has been stuffed with stories on our space activities. No pioneering scientific development has been better covered. The development of atomic power was shrouded in secrecy, while the beginning of aviation, the invention of the light bulb, the telephone, and the steam engine, all came before the era of mass media of communication. In the movies, we have relived the excitement of the discoveries of Edison, Fulton, Whitney, and Bell. But not till the space age could the public live the day-to-day adventure of discovery as it happened. This they did, questioning the decisions, cursing the delays, and praying with the launches.

Despite the volumes that already crowd our libraries, I believe that at least one or two good stories remain to be told - and I would like to tell them. Except for the ghost-written We Seven, none of the original group in Project Mercury has yet published his memoirs. Much remains which went unsaid in the pressure, confusion, and excitement of the early days of the space program. I believe that most of us who lived through that period feel the full story has yet to be told. Further, with the immediate pressure off, it is possible now to view the events of those years in the light of the results of both our program and that of the Russians. If we are in danger at this point of succumbing to the smugness of the Monday morning quarterback, we do have the perspective which time lends to philosophy. Where on a day-to-day basis every hour brings a crisis, now a year after completion, the individual cobblestones fade into the major curves and hills of the highway.

This story will follow in roughly chronological order my own experiences in Project Mercury. It begins with the day in October 1958 when I first joined the group of two to three dozen scientists who were about to embark on the mad project of putting man in space. It describes the selection and training of the astronauts, the building of the space vehicle and the worldwide network, and finally the exciting days of the first launches. The book will end with the flight of Gordon Cooper and a brief back-over-the-shoulder look at the significance of the project to history.

The central theme running through the book will be man’s contest with his own creation -- his effort to find a place for himself in a world (and out of it) where electro-mechanical devices seem to be doing things so much better than he can. This half-Pygmalion, half-Frankensteinian problem of automation was a central controversy running through the program. The original group of engineers who initiated Project Mercury came from the “Pilotless Research Division” at Langley Field. They were used to developing automatic equipment and had the greatest faith in their capability to design unmanned space vehicles. They felt that if a man had to go along, then he should be a passenger and keep his hands off the controls. However, the highly trained test pilots selected for Mercury had no desire to be glorified chimpanzees. They had strong confidence in their own abilities, but a healthy skepticism in the reliability of automatic equipment. Mercury was a result of the interaction of these two forces. The solutions which were evolved for Mercury had to be based on a good understanding of the nature of the capabilities and limitations of men and machines. Such knowledge leads not only to a definition of man’s role in space, but may throw some light on his place here on earth.

Introduction: The astronauts’ headshrinker

As the astronauts’ psychologist, I have often been asked, “Do you read their minds?” My answer is, “I don’t have to, they speak their minds.” Working with these vigorous, intelligent and highly skilled men was an exciting experience, made all the more enjoyable by the fact that while they were selected for maturity and good judgment, they all had a fine sense of humor, running from puckish to ebullient merriment which was always close beneath the surface. For these men, the earth was their oyster, and one could see how they savored it as they swallowed it whole.

Anyone who worked with them had to take a good deal of kidding, particularly a headshrinker. The only defense was to give as good as you received, and it was all part of the special closeness those of us felt who were working with the astronauts in Project Mercury. Together we learned how to float through the air weightless, breathe while under seven times the normal pressure of gravity, and to walk about in the strait jacket called a pressure suit.

How did a myopic psychologist get involved in this sort of an adventure? Well, the process was a rather natural one, surprising as it may seem. Unfortunately, the only psychologist that most people can name is Sigmund Freud. While he made important contributions to the field of psychology, his popularity is primarily due to the fact that he was the only man of his era who could get books published on that most fascinating of all topics - sex. His practice was limited to those with neuroses and other emotional disorders. Since for the public he is the archetype of the psychologist (though he was not one - he was a psychiatrist) most people today believe that the psychologist deals only with the mentally disturbed.

Actually, psychologists are found in our schools helping to develop educational programs, and working with problem children. They are found in industry, participating in the design of equipment, helping to select employees, and evaluating candidates for promotion. They are found in the business world, evaluating the impact of singing commercials; in politics, assessing the reaction of the public to the speeches, the smiles, and the haircuts of our national leaders. They are found flying with the Air Force, marching with the Army, swimming with the Navy, helping to make peace with the Peace Corps, and helping to prepare for war with SAC. Nearly everywhere that man has found an occupation, the psychologist has found an area of study. This, of course, is appropriate, since the proper subject of psychological study is the behavior of man wherever he is found. Now man is beginning to travel in space. Having pursued his subject to the ends of the earth, it is not surprising to find the psychologist following the astronauts.

While my assignment to Project Mercury came as a complete surprise, it was one for which I had been preparing for a number of years. I received my doctor's degree in psychology from UCLA in January 1953, and left immediately for a draft-exempt job at the Navy Electronics Laboratory in San Diego, California. There I was involved in a number of studies, one of which involved attempting to help the Navy improve its helicopter-borne sonar system. After a year at San Diego, the project on which I was working was completed and my draft board began to get restless again, so I volunteered for the Navy aviation psychology program.

After two months at Officer Candidate School, during which I learned which end of the ship was called the bow, I reported to the Naval School of Aviation Medicine in Pensacola, Florida. Here a small group of psychologists were trying to improve the selection tests and training procedures used in the Navy aviation program. It was there that I first came in contact with the active young intelligent athletes who would eventually make up the population from which we selected the astronauts. At this time, we were dealing with them as young men ten years before they would have the experience and maturity to be considered for astronautics. Some of these young men whose reflexes were a fraction of a second slower, whose intelligence was a few points lower, or whose physical stamina was slightly less would not make the grade. They would fail or drop out of flight school at their own request. Even if they passed through the full flight training program, they would get transferred to desk jobs or be shuttled off to unimportant flight assignments. Only the very best would make it through training and operational flying and be selected for the best pilot training which would make them eligible for astronautics. During this time, I, together with other Navy and Air Force psychologists, were learning a good deal about what was required to make a good pilot, and many of these lessons were to be applied later in selecting astronauts.

After three years in Pensacola, I was transferred to the Navy Medical Research Institute at Bethesda, Maryland. There I was privileged to work for the grand old man of Navy space medicine, Captain Norman Lee Barr. Captain Barr had been flying for nearly thirty years. He had had Army and Air Force wings, and was a Navy flight surgeon. He was one of the first to become interested in recording the electrical responses of the heart and other measures of physical activity from pilots while they were actually piloting aircraft. He developed a radio telemetering system for making these recordings, and during the year and a half I worked with him in 1957 and 1958, he was involved in monitoring flights of jet aircraft and the manned balloon ascents of the Navy Stratolab program.

It was during this period that I first came into contact with space flight. In the fall of 1957 the Army and Navy decided to work together on a biological flight program. On some of the Jupiter IRBM test flights, there were small spaces available which could be used for packages containing animals. Dr. Barr learned of this and was instrumental in setting up a cooperative program between the Army laboratory headed by Dr. von Braun at Huntsville and the Naval School of Aviation Medicine at Pensacola, Florida. During the fall of 1957 we studied a number of animals as prospects for a space flight, and in this process I performed my first space selection job by choosing the squirrel monkey as the first astro-animal over the cotton-top marmoset, mice, turtles, frogs, and various other candidates. A year and a half later, in the spring of 1959, the monkeys Able and Baker rode the Jupiter 1500 miles down range and were successfully recovered. The squirrel monkey Baker performed well and came back to live happily with her friends at Pensacola. Here was proof of the success of this first space flight selection program.

Early in October 1958 as one of the first acts in getting under way with the Mercury program, the new NASA invited Dr. Randolph Lovelace to form a committee of aerospace medical specialists to assist in the manned space program. The initial action of this committee was to call for the assignment by the three services of aeromedical specialists to the Space Task Group at Langley Field, Virginia. The morning after the first meeting of the Lovelace Committee, I received a call from Captain Barr. He told me of the new Space Task Group forming at Langley and asked that I go down there immediately. That night I took a bus to Newport News and the next morning the adventure about which this book will be written began.

I arrived at Langley to find the old NACA insignia being painted over and new NASA labelling being put on the buildings. Approximately two dozen men were assembling in the upper story of the unitary wind tunnel building to begin what was to become Project Mercury, but at that time what was still a nameless plan to put a man in space. Shortly after I arrived, Dr. Stanley White from the Air Force and Dr. Bill Augerson from the Army came aboard and the three of us acted as general advisors to the new director of the Space Task Group, Dr. Robert R. Gilruth. One of my first assignments was to work on the astronaut selection program, and by Christmas time the main outlines of the program were agreed upon and approved not only by NASA but also by the White House. Early in January the selection program got under way and from that time until early April I was primarily concerned with coordinating the program and insuring that all the data was collected and catalogued.

Early in April seven men reported to the Space Task Group for astronaut training. From then on my assignment changed. I was now in charge of the astronauts’ preparation for space flight. For two years I coordinated the group training program by which all seven men worked together to become highly proficient in operating the Mercury spacecraft.

Beginning in the spring 1961, Project Mercury entered its operational phase. Three months prior to each flight the pilot and his back-up moved to the Cape to begin intensive preparation. I went with them, helping to set up their training activities and to assist them in preparing for the flight. During the flight itself, I was in the control center recording the pilot's activities. Afterwards I would fly to the debriefing site at Grand Turk or Grand Bahama Island in the Caribbean. On these trips I carried with me several hundred questions which each astronaut attempted to answer in order to provide as much information as possible for the project team. After each flight I would spend two to three weeks helping to prepare the flight report.

This activity continued until the end of the Mercury program, when, with the announcement of the new Apollo program to land a man on the moon, the Space Task Group became the Manned Spacecraft Center, and was given a new home in Houston, Texas. At this time I moved up to the Director’s staff as his Assistant for Human Factors. At the end of my four years with the astronauts, not one of their heads was as much as a fraction of an inch smaller than in April 1959. But all of our heads were filled with much new knowledge of space flight and what it takes for a man to venture alone outside the protective cocoon this earth provides. If I had failed as a head shrinker, perhaps I had yet enjoyed some success as a selector and trainer of the first pioneers who were truly “out of this world.”

Chapter 1: A search for pioneers

Theme: February 1959, military test pilots are approached on volunteering for Mercury. Will they agree that the pilot’s role is important enough to be worth the risk to their lives? Introduces theme - Does man have a place in space? Main characters: Selection team - Voas, Donlan, North, Augerson; and astronaut candidates.

The man across from me shifted in his seat, crossing his long legs and sweeping the stubble of his crew cut head with a large palm. Finally, blue eyes fixed firmly on me, he gave his answer, “No.” Obviously the word came to him with difficulty. He hastened on with his reasons, his angular jaw clipping out the words briskly but with some hesitation, the reasoning directed not so much to me as to himself.

“The Air Force is putting me through graduate school to get my Ph.D. in astronautics. It’s been damn tough but I know I’ll make the grade. I’ve looked forward to this opportunity for so long that I can’t give it up now. If I quit I’ll never have another opportunity to get my degree. A year from now I would jump at the chance."

I nodded my head. “I understand. A degree in astronautics plus your flight experience should make you invaluable to the Air Force.”

He smiled thinly. “Well, that’s the way I had it planned, but I hadn’t expected an opportunity like this to come along. Well, that’s the breaks.” His hand came down on the arm rest of the chair and he stood up. In three strides of his long legs his hand was on the door knob. I looked back at the roster in front of me and started to write.

A few moments later, I realized that he was still standing at the door. Staring for a moment at the wall, he twisted his body around and came back to the chair. “It certainly is a great opportunity. Will there be any chance I could come in a year from now?”

I made the usual throw-away statement about how we were all sure that manned space flight was here to stay and that there would be a later selection program for which it appeared he would be particularly eligible, with his flying experience and a Ph.D. I said it with every attempt to get authority and confidence into my voice, but his face reflected what we both knew -- today we were selecting the pioneers. There would never be another opportunity to be first.

Three more times he got out of the seat, moved to the door, only to return again. But his “No” stood.

He was only one of the eleven men I saw that afternoon, but I shall never forget the experience of that interview, or of that afternoon as a whole. Life’s major turning points are few. It is rare even for those who are professional students of behavior to see human beings in action, making a choice which they know will markedly affect the rest of their lives.

That afternoon in February 1959 I was sitting in the small room in the Pentagon conducting private interviews with the most experienced military test pilots. It was a critical point in our selection program. Warren North, Charlie Donlan and I were to find out how many of these trained pilots were willing to volunteer to fly the Mercury vehicle into space. On that day we were to get the answer to the question everyone had been asking for months. Would there be any volunteers?

It seems almost strange now, but at the time we were not sure. We had had the usual letters from crackpots, but many of our senior administrators had said that we would never get highly brained test pilots to volunteer to be guinea pigs for the Mercury program. Many pilots approached the Mercury program with doubt. Were they merely passengers to be tolerated as long as they remained passive and did not interfere with the automatic equipment which would guide the Mercury flight? Some of the engineers said they should be. But most of us felt that highly trained pilots could greatly increase the probability that the Mercury program would be a success. But could we persuade the pilots that this was the case?

The question was put to test on a snowy morning in January 1959, when thirty of the best test pilots from the Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps came to Washington. In the morning we briefed them on the project, trying to stress the importance of the astronaut’s role, and listening eagerly to their questions to get an indication of their interest in the program. In the afternoon each man came back to be interviewed singly, and to give us his “yes” or “no” for Project Mercury. Would there be as many as ten “yeses”? Or perhaps only five, or even less? By the end of the afternoon, no less than twenty-five had said “yes”!

Chapter 2: The early days

Theme: October to December 1958. Describes formation of Space Task Group, and the contest with the Air Force during the preceding year for assignment of the man in space project. Principal characters: Gilruth, Faget, Donlan, Hammack, Purser, Mathews.

October 1958, the month which marked the official beginning of NASA, found the Project Mercury team just getting organized. Less than three dozen professionals occupied a few small offices on the second floor of the unitary wind tunnel building at Langley Field, Virginia, Robert R. Gilruth, smiling, benevolent, head of the Space Task Group, a former director of the Pilotless Research Division; Charles Donlan, a driving bull terrier of a man, associate director; brilliant Max Faget, the spacecraft’s designer; and the other principal members of the team were attempting to lay the groundwork for the program. These were exciting days. Each morning presented a new problem. Every conference surprised with a new discovery. Here, while the great majority of the world looked upon manned space flight as a comic book dream, were three dozen men who were proceeding almost as if manned flight were a fact. To them it had been accomplished, in their laboratories and wind tunnels, during the previous year. What remained was technical implementation. It was not a matter of could it be done, but exactly how and when it would be done. This last year had seen a contest between the Air Force and the NACA for the assignment to put the first man in space. And these men felt under pressure to show that Congress had not erred in assigning the job to them.

Finally, there was the ever-present pressure of Russian competition. Our President had said we were not in a race, and yet the project people knew that we should not be second. Could we be first? What risks should be taken in an effort to be first? What would be the effect of losing an astronaut in an early flight? Would the program be cancelled? Along with the technical problems of building and operating a spacecraft, these policy questions had to be wrestled with and the basic decisions made, which were to guide the effort throughout the Mercury program.

Chapter 3: The flying ash can

Theme: Describes the process by which the spacecraft design was determined during the period after Sputnik I. Main characters: Faget, Mathews, Heberlig, Eggers, Hammack.

“How can it be a bird if it doesn’t have wings?” Certainly Mercury was one of the strangest-looking devices for human transportation ever conceived. The first manned space vehicle had to be a cross between an airplane and a missile, but finding the proper cross was a difficult problem. Those engineers whose experience was primarily in aviation felt that a space vehicle should have some sort of wings, so that it could make a landing like an airplane, and so that it could use the atmosphere to maneuver and pick its touch down point. In an effort to design such a vehicle, literally hundreds of different shapes were evaluated in wind tunnels -- designs that looked like tear drops and slightly smashed ice cream cones, to designs with folding wings which could be opened as the vehicle came close to the earth. But all of these flying models had one basic problem -- they were too heavy. Our ICBMs had been built just large enough to carry highly refined atomic warheads. Therefore, they were very limited in the load they could carry. But there was no time to build a new rocket. We had to use the one we had, or accept a long delay in achieving manned flight.

Max Faget came up with the answer. The astronaut was not flying -- he was being shot like a bullet, and his spacecraft would have to look something like a bullet. There was one major problem. Elaborate computer calculations of the flight path indicated that in emergencies the astronaut might have to withstand as much as twenty times the normal load of gravity. For a few seconds a two-hundred-pound man would weigh over two tons. Could any man survive that? “No” was the answer that came from the Air Force. Their standard doctrine was that no man should be asked to take more than twelve g. How could you protect the man against this tremendous load? Some medical specialists had proposed putting him in a water bath in order to equalize the pressure around his body. But this was impractical for space flight.

Perhaps the next best thing would be a closely contoured couch, molded to the astronaut’s body. In July 1957 Max Faget and Jack Heberlig took a couch which had been molded to the body of a test pilot to the Johnsville centrifuge and made a series of runs beginning with low acceleration and gradually working up. 12, 14, 16, 20 g! The pilot had to work hard to control his breathing, but otherwise he was all right. He could watch instruments and make radio reports, even when his body was twenty times its normal weight. Max Faget’s basic concept had been demonstrated. Project Mercury could get underway.

Many other problems remained to be solved: the problem of providing a means to escape an exploding rocket; the means by which the attitude of the spacecraft was to be controlled in space; how to provide a livable atmosphere for the astronaut in the void of space; how to provide a door which could be securely closed and yet would open rapidly in the event of emergency; how to deploy the parachutes reliably at just the right altitude; how to cushion the astronaut's fall; how to keep the spacecraft floating once it had landed in the water. Solutions were needed for these and many other questions. All involved a number of possible approaches which were argued vigorously, studied carefully, and usually settled by exhaustive tests.

Chapter 4: To venture alone

Theme: November 1958. To begin planning the selection program we had to draw upon our knowledge of the nature of those individuals who had been successful explorers in the past.

From the beginning of time, some men have been driven to leave the safety of family, tribe or country and to dare the wilderness and the hostile stranger, seeking new lands, new goods to trade, or new information. What is the nature of these individuals? Do they have common traits? Is there an explorer “type”, a pioneering character, which sets these men apart? Are their achievements purely a matter of chance or special circumstance? And if the pioneers of the past bear certain traits in common, do our present-day explorers come from the same mold? Studies of the chronicles of exploration and of the records of those who have survived long periods of isolation in small boats or the Arctic wastes give some clues to these questions.

The nature of exploration is changing. Travel has always involved some technical planning, and frequently great expense which only governments could afford. Columbus’ discoveries cost Isabella her crown jewels. Prince Henry the Navigator had a large program of government-sponsored exploration, while the first circumnavigation of Africa was authorized by the Pharaoh Necho II. Nevertheless, as long as the explorations were within our earth’s atmosphere, many have been privately sponsored and on individual initiative. Thus, the senior Polo brothers made their first trip to the court of the Great Khan for commercial reasons, while Leif Erikson was looking for new farm lands for his family and friends. Stanley was sponsored by a newspaper, while Livingston was sponsored only by himself and his God.

In space flight, sch opportunities for private initiative or small business profit are non-existent. The cost of putting a satellite into orbit is so high that only a government or the largest companies can consider financing the venture. While the exploration of space will require human skills and courage of the highest order, it will not be accomplished by the intrepid individual who succeeds in interesting a university or scientific society in his work, and takes off for the wilderness. It will not even be accomplished by a well-organized business venture such as that which financed Lindbergh’s flight. Only the government will have the resources to produce the immense rockets, the complex spacecraft, and the vast operations required to place a man on the moon or on the planets. When exploration becomes technically complex and requires the marshalling of such large resources, what role can the individual play? How does the astronaut vary from the argonaut, the Viking, or the western trailblazer?

All of these men share certain characteristics: intelligence, the ability to live alone and make their own decisions, and most important, ability to think clearly and act effectively when danger threatens -- a trait the psychologist calls “stress-tolerance”, but which is known to most people as bravery.

Chapter 5: Measuring the man

Theme: November 1958 through March 1959. This chapter gives the story of the selection program.

Human behavior viewed under the stress and confusion of day to day activities often seems impossibly complex, if not entirely irrational. But Freud had the fundamental insight into the problem. He pointed out that if human behavior seemed incomprehensible, it was only because we had not probed deep enough, had not detected the basic driving force producing the seemingly irrational actions. Modern psychology must be based on the principle that all behavior can be as completely understood, and as clearly explained as why an automobile moves forward when pressure is applied to the gas pedal. If this is not possible now, it is only because the human mechanism is so exceedingly complex. If it is true that knowing the right facts, we can predict behavior, then we should be able to predict who can live and make decisions alone, and who can think and act effectively in the face of danger. In the past we have attempted to do this in our selection programs for soldiers and aviators, secret service operators and submariners. From this experience the Project Mercury team derived the basic procedures to be used in the selection program for the astronauts.

We began by considering the number of astronauts which would be needed and the professional groups from which they might be drawn. Several different approaches to the solicitation of candidates were discussed through the fall of 1958. An initial plan was referred to the White House, where it was rejected. We were ordered to keep the program secret. This required limiting the selection program to members of the military services, who could be interviewed secretly.

During the first weeks of January 1959 a selection board reviewed the records of 502 military test pilots and selected the 110 pilots who met five basic requirements: age 39 or below, height 5’11” or less, a graduate of test pilot school, a jet qualified pilot with at least 1000 hours of flight time, a college graduate with a B.S. or equivalent degree in science or engineering. These pilots were invited by their services to come to the Pentagon to receive a briefing on Project Mercury, and to be interviewed by members of the Space Task Group. Thirty-two were selected for further processing. They were sent to the Lovelace Clinic for a week of detailed physiological examinations and then on to Wright Field Aeromedical Laboratory for a week of psychological and “stress tests”. The results of these tests were summarized and reviewed at the Space Task Group at Langley Field in the last days of March 1959. In all, eighteen men were found medically qualified without reservation. From them the seven Mercury astronauts were chosen.

Chapter 6: What are they like?

Theme: This chapter describes the astronauts as a group, their hopes, fears, and reasons for volunteering for Mercury.

Everyone asks, “What are they really like? Are they really set apart from other men, or do they have their own individual foibles and problems like the rest of us?” From a distance, viewed through the distorting mirror of the press, the astronauts may seem to be cut from a common mold. They often appear modeled on a combination of Frank Merriwell, Horatio Alger, and Buck Rogers. But these are not dime novel or comic strip characters. They are individual human beings with all the complexity of character which that implies. Their similarities result from a lifelong dedication to a common profession -- aviation. In those areas only briefly touched by their professional lives, or in those traits of personality and character formed prior to their entry into aviation, they are different as are the members of any other professional group.

However, aviation as a career exerts a stronger conditioning effect on life than many other professions. Moreover, these are highly successful individuals in their profession, so the mold is even more forcefully set. They were carefully selected for maturity, intelligence, social effectiveness, and other characteristics which give them more traits in common than most groups have. More than two dozen significant psychological traits have been recognized in our evaluation of the astronauts, and together they describe the typical astronaut. In many ways he is the embodiment of the American folk hero. Beginning in reasonably humble circumstances in a small-town environment, with a good family life and strong Protestant tradition, he worked his way up through a series of challenges. Each success raised his sights to the next goal, and reinforced his confidence in his own ability to meet any challenge.

While much in their lives fits this rather austere American success story, they are also products of the aviation environment which tends to breed an “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” attitude. Their lives are high paced. If they work hard, they also play hard. Working hours are long, as are the recreation hours. It is the sleep that suffers. But their good health gives them a great reserve of energy which never seems to be depleted.

Do they show fear? Certainly. Do they reflect annoyance? Of course. But what produces fear and annoyance are not those factors which most of us might expect -- the hazard of their profession, the launching delays. Rather, it is the fear that a medical problem or a spacecraft malfunction will deprive them of their opportunity to fly.

And what of the wives? Do they show more concern over the possible dangers than their husbands? Inside, probably. But to the public it shows no more. The families are conditioned to the life they lead. The families, no less than the astronauts themselves, see this as a natural extension of the aviation career. With them they recognize the hazard, but they see it as no greater than the one they have faced throughout their lives.

Chapter 7: Man and machine

Theme: This chapter describes the astronaut’s job, attempting to indicate the significance of his role in relation to the spacecraft’s automatic control systems.

What can a man do? The Mercury spacecraft was designed to be as much like an ICBM nose cone as possible. Our ICBMs span continents and land with precision within a few miles of their target, all automatically, without any help from a pilot. Certainly Mercury could do the same. In fact, it would have to do so on early test flights before the management would have enough confidence in the system to let a man fly in it. If all this could be accomplished automatically, what was there for the man to do, other than to sit back and enjoy this roller coaster ride?

There was plenty to do, the astronauts claimed. What if one of the automatic systems failed? It might be all right to miss hitting the target city if there was another ICBM on its way. But an astronaut in the Mercury vehicle had only one chance. If the system didn’t work, it would be of little comfort to him that there were other Mercury spacecraft ready for future flights. What if the retro rockets were not fired on time, or it the spacecraft were in the wrong attitude? Could the astronaut do nothing but just sit there and let these things go wrong? Certainly not. He should be provided with a complete set of controls that would allow him to do all these critical functions by a completely separate means. If the automatic system failed, he should have a second chance. In this way the astronaut could greatly increase the reliability of the Mercury flights.

This concept was reflected throughout the design of the spacecraft. The automatic systems functioned through electrical circuits, but in case they should fail, the man was provided with duplicate circuits, or better yet, simple mechanical levers which required no electricity. His brain was a far more complex and effective computer than any that could have been designed for use in the Mercury vehicle. Moreover, by using his muscle power through mechanical levers, he was a source of power for the spacecraft that was independent of its batteries and could not be put out of action by a short. Thus, one of the major contributions of the astronaut to the flight was to increase the total reliability of the system. The actual space flights which were to come would demonstrate the soundness of this design concept, and the importance of the role that man can play in any complex system, particularly one on which human life depends.

But in addition to this, man has another very significant, if perhaps more subtle, role to play in space flight. The flight which the Mercury spacecraft can carry out automatically is very limited and stereotyped. No basic changes in the mission can be made without human intervention. It is only with the astronaut on board that the attitude of the vehicle can be varied to suit the special requirements that may arise on any flight. A mute automaton, the unmanned spacecraft is blind to the unexpected, deaf to novelty. It can make only those measurements which have been thought of before the launch. But with an astronaut on board, the flight plan can be changed at any time. The man can note and bring back reports of unexpected sightings which might never be discovered through automatic systems. Thus the astronaut provides the flexibility to adjust to the unexpected. Reliability and flexibility -- these are the key elements provided by man in, or out of, this automated world.

Chapter 8: Training for space

Theme: April 1959 to April 1961. This chapter describes the astronaut training program and the strange devices used to simulate space flight.

When the astronauts reported aboard on April 9, 1959, we had no training devices, no manuals or text books. The spacecraft which they were to learn to operate had never flown; in fact, did not exist. Even the designs for it were not yet complete. Nevertheless, training had to begin, because we were hopeful of being ready to fly within a year. Actually, two years were to pass before the first manned flight, but we did not know this at the time.

We began with what we had. At first, the training consisted of classroom lectures and trips to visit the contractors’ plants. On these trips the engineers who were designing the spacecraft would describe their particular part of the system. We would get a chance to see the large blueprints and the first bits and pieces of hardware. We had our first experience of being closed up within a space slightly smaller than a phone booth in the Mercury mockup.

At Cape Canaveral we watched a launching of a Thor IRBM from the closest above-ground point which the safety office would allow. It was a beautiful night. A few dark cotton-puffs of clouds, their borders laced with reflected moonlight, sailed slowly across the sky. A broken silver path led across the waves to the rising moon. The rocket, an upright silver spike, stood on the pad, bathed in arc light. The count came to us over the radio -- 4,3,2,1 -- for a moment the whole Cape was illuminated with a brilliant flash. Slowly, carefully balanced on its jet of flame, the missile rose directly skyward until only its fiery tail could be seen. This was the first large missile launch that any of us had seen. All of the men came back highly excited. Each, visualizing himself a passenger, thrilled over the adventure that lay ahead.

As training equipment became available, we began to provide the astronauts with simulations of the unusual conditions they would meet in space. They felt the acceleration forces of launch, their weight multiplied many times, making even breathing a chore. They experienced weightlessness by flying roller coaster trajectories in a large jet transport. This was probably the most pleasant part of the braining program. They could literally fly, floating through the air doing twists and somersaults, having more fun than kids jumping on a bed. They were measured and fitted for pressure suits, and learned how it felt to be knights in shining armor, trying to carry around a stiff outer shell. They worked for hours learning how to squeeze through the small escape hatch of the spacecraft while encumbered with the suit and its bulbous helmet. They were sweated in heat chambers and tossed and turned in rotational devices. Every simulator which appeared to have any applicability to the flight was used to provide the astronaut with the training he needed for his job in space. We wanted the flight to provide no surprises. We hoped that everything experienced in space would have been encountered in training. We seem to have succeeded. Several of the astronauts reported that they thought the flights were easier than their training experiences.

A number of training devices originally considered were not used. It had been proposed that a series of training flights should be made with the Mercury capsule carried to an altitude of twenty miles on a large balloon. It was also suggested that an astronaut should sit in the spacecraft atop the Redstone rocket while it was being statically fired on the ground. These and a number of other proposals were studied, and at least initial plans were made to actually conduct the training. But in the end they were dropped because they appeared too costly or involved too much risk.

Chapter 9: An anchor to the ground

Theme: January 1959 to September 1962. Describes the development of the worldwide network and some of the operational problems which had to be ironed out. Asks a basic question: When danger threatens, how much can you trust a man alone in space?

Throughout the flight the astronaut would be alone and on his own, but he had one link with the ground -- his radio and telemetry system. In a worldwide network of stations on the ground, several hundred engineers and physicians were to be ready to answer questions, give advice, and if need be, send the signal which would begin the automatic initiation of a reentry. Designing and constructing this network was almost as big a job as building the spacecraft itself.

A first question to be decided was how many stations were needed. Was it necessary to be able to talk to the astronaut at all times? Or could communications be intermittent? It soon became apparent that it would be too expensive and probably unnecessary to have the capability of speaking to the astronaut at all times. But even to be able to speak to him at intervals no longer than ten to fifteen minutes would require a number of stations spread around the world. Constructing this network was not an easy task. The orbits passed over neutralist countries which were not at all sure that they wanted an American tracking station on their soil. Once the number and placement of stations had been determined, it was necessary to decide how to link them with a rapid system of communications.

There were also operational problems. Should the astronaut call the stations or should they call him? Should the astronaut be required to give regular reports, or should the stations talk only to the astronaut when he requested their help? Most important of all, what information should be displayed to the ground stations and how should it be displayed?

Many debates centered around these questions, but perhaps the fundamental problem was who was to have the final word in controlling the flight. The astronauts were used to being in control of their own aircraft. While as pilots they would take instruction from tower flight controllers during landings and take offs, they were always basically in full control of the flight and the final decision was always their own. In space flight, however, there were so many complex problems that it was argued that final, authoritative flight control should be on the ground.

This made the astronauts nervous. It is the nature of the pilot to have full confidence in his own capability. If he did not, he could not continue to take the risks that he does. He has also learned to be skeptical of the ability of others who are not directly under his observation and control. The astronauts were not at all sure that they wanted someone on the ground making critical life and death decisions for them. The flight controllers were equally adamant that they were not going to put final decisions in the hands of an astronaut who might be made sick or even become unconscious due to the unusual conditions of the space environment. How could we get around this impasse? One method was to make the astronauts themselves flight controllers and to put them in charge of the voice communication with the man in space. In this way, he would hear a familiar voice at all of the major ground stations. He would know that it was someone who understood intimately his own problems; a man in whom he had confidence.

Another important method of building confidence was continuous practice. No Broadway play has ever gone through more rehearsals. No stars ever practiced their lines and actions more frequently than the astronauts and the flight controllers. In integrated mission simulations the prospective astronaut would make mock flights with the ground trainer tied in with the control center. At their positions in the control center the flight monitors would go through their activities as on the day of the flight itself. Such simulations were run literally hundreds of times until every problem had been worked out. Nevertheless, some unforeseen difficulties remained, as the actual flights would show. But from each flight something new was learned. By the third orbital flight a relatively efficient system in which all had confidence had been developed.

Chapter 10: Monkeys are the craziest people

Theme: This chapter will describe the animal program conducted in conjunction with Mercury; the elaborate procedures developed for training and preparing the astrochimps for their flights, the results of the four flights which made use of animals, the disputes over the meanings of the data collected during the flights, and finally, the controversies which led to a committee of scientists appointed by the President recommending that sixty chimps be given centrifuge rides to determine their reactions to high levels of acceleration.

Before committing man in space, it seemed desirable to make sure that no hazards had been overlooked. It was important to demonstrate that all the equipment intended to support life would function as intended. This seemed logical, yet it was not easy. If an animal was to precede man in space, just what sort of animal would most closely approximate the human being? Each animal had its advocates among the scientific community. It was claimed that the pig’s internal organs were most like that of the man, and pigs were used in several drop tests. Unfortunately one crew left a pig lying on its back while they went off to eat, and found (as any good farmer knows) that a pig left lying on its back too long will die. Dogs also had their partisans -- in Russia they won out. However, there was a major drawback to dogs. They have the largest and best-organized political party in this country. The SPCA commands considerable attention from the press and respect among the legislators. In any case, the howls of dog fanciers following Laika’s flight made our own management quite sensitive to the use of animals.

The psychologists who were most interested in animal behavior problems were monkey advocates. The brains of these little animals most closely resemble those of a human being. In addition, their hands are well-formed to do tasks similar to those of the astronauts, like pushing buttons and pulling levers. These little beasts were not without their problems, however. All species of monkeys come equipped with a good set of teeth which they are not the least bit bashful about using. Moreover, while the young chimpanzees are as friendly and cuddly as babies, when they reach adulthood they become meaner and more irascible than a Scrooge. Moreover, they are quick and far too intelligent. They learn to open cage doors and untie knots. On one occasion an animal trainer handed a chimpanzee a banana just before he pushed the button to start the acceleration sled in which the ape was sitting. The ride was a jarring one and the animal came back to his cage bruised and battered. Feeling sorry for him the trainer gave him another banana, but the ape had learned what a banana meant, and the trainer got this one back squarely between the eyes.

Our engineers approached the animal flights with some nervousness. The first thing they insisted upon was that the animal be completely restrained. They wanted to be sure that he could not possibly touch any of the controls. This was taken care of by housing him in a small compartment of his own which simulated the astronaut’s pressure suit. Then there were major public relations headaches. What if an animal caught a disease and died while in the spacecraft for a reason that had nothing to do with space flight? A situation similar to this arose with the bio-flight program conducted by the Army and Navy when the monkey Able died while undergoing minor surgery for the removal of an electrode. The Army had some difficulty persuading the public that its death had nothing to do with the space flight. How far should the project go in protecting the life of the animal? Should all the precautions be taken that would be used with the man? This might mean playing it safe and cutting a mission short even though more data might be gathered at some risk to the animal. It was finally decided that essentially the same safety precautions and operational procedures would have to be used for the animal as for the astronaut, since the public would interpret the loss of the animal as an indication it was not safe for a man to fly. As biologists, many of us chaffed under this restriction. Since animals could not be used on shots which would not be recovered, we lost a number of opportunities to collect data. But this was just one of the penalties of working in the glare of publicity. We were not in the laboratory now, and could not use the same procedures that we would use in our own research.

Chapter 11: Managing the circus

Theme: This chapter describes the problems encountered in trying to manage a program involving two million workers, spread throughout the country and around the world.

October 1958: Thirty-six scientists and engineers were packed together in six rooms in the second story of the unitary wind tunnel building at Langley Field, Virginia. This was the nucleus of the management team that was to direct Mercury. At its height, this project was to have over two million people working for it directly or indirectly, spread from coast to coast and in twelve foreign nations. The final cost of the project was to run $384 million, over $10 million per man in the initial project group.

While this first three dozen was made up of some of the country’s finest, most creative engineers, its management experience was extremely limited. The most experienced manager, Dr. Gilruth, had been responsible for a division at Langley Field with perhaps as many as 150 men. At most, this division had been responsible for spending a million dollars a year. Soon, Dr. Gilruth would be in charge of an organization spending twice that amount every week!

Before October 1958, Robert Gilruth and Max Faget were known only to the small fraternity of aircraft engineers. With the beginning of Project Mercury suddenly their names began to appear regularly in the papers. Their decisions were reviewed not only by their superiors in Washington, but by the press, Congressional leaders, and even the President. Where formerly, decisions could be arrived at in the quiet and privacy of their offices and errors buried in the details of forbidding-looking technical reports, now every action was second-guessed, and re-analyzed, not only by partisans anxious to see the program succeed, but also by jealous rivals who were unhappy over not having been chosen to direct the program themselves.

During the five-year life of the Mercury program, new methods had to be developed for managing the great masses of people, equipment, and materials. They had to be worked out by individuals without prior experience in management of large projects, in the glare of nationwide publicity, and they had to be worked out on a rigid time schedule. In the process, many had their toes stepped on, some fell by the wayside, but in the end, new and effective management techniques were developed with amazing speed.

The success of this whole effort is indicated by the fact that total spending exceeded by only ten per cent the initial estimate, even though this project involved a never-before-attempted engineering feat of putting man in space, a feat which many said could not be done at all. The goal of manned orbital flight was achieved in three years and five months from the project go-ahead, a period slightly less than that required to develop an operational atomic bomb. These achievements are similar in their epochal nature. Each was started by scientists, not managers. This is the story of how the Project Mercury scientists grew into managers.

Chapter 12: The first man

Theme: February to May 1961. This chapter covers the preparation and flight of Alan Shepard in Freedom 7.

“Manual control handle; on. Manual pitch; on. Pitching to retro.” Al Shepard’s voice came over our headsets above the whine of the spacecraft inverter noise. The phrases were completely familiar, I had heard them again and again during the course of training. Just the day before he had rehearsed this same voice procedure during four practice runs on the trainer. But today it was different. Excitement seemed to have changed Al’s inflection, or perhaps my ear was affected by my own elation. I could not be sure, but the important and reassuring fact was that the words were the same, the mission was going exactly as rehearsed. None of us had hoped for such a smooth ride or such an uneventful countdown. Only three days before, we had come within twenty minutes of launch and had to scrub the mission. But now everything was moving perfectly, and we were about to have the first successful flight under our belts. We needed it, because just two weeks earlier, Yuri Gagarin had circled the earth in a Russian spaceship.

This first flight, coming after two months in intensive preparation, provided a needed lift to the whole project. In the glow of success following this flight, President Kennedy was able to propose the program to put a man on the moon. The flight provided a verification not only of the spacecraft’s systems but of the astronaut training procedures and the selection program. We all looked forward to the next flight with enthusiasm and confidence. Perhaps a little too much of each, as our experience in the next flight was to show.

Chapter 13: A little bruise

Theme: June - July 1961. Covers preparation and flight of Liberty Bell 7. Provides a sobering note to the enthusiasm which followed the great success of Freedom 7.

“O.K., Hunt Club. This is Liberty Bell 7. Are you ready for pick-up?”

“This is Hunt Club 1; this is affirmative.”

“O.K., latch on, then give me a call and I’ll power down and blow the hatch, O.K.?”

Though there is considerable static, Grissom’s voice can be heard clearly as he talks with the helicopters. They are right overhead, about to hook onto Liberty Bell 7 and pull it free of the water. In a moment, Gus will be out and into the horse collar, dangling momentarily in midair on his way up to the helicopter.

In the control center faces are wreathed with smiles. Chris Kraft, the flight director, turns to shake Walt Williams’ hand. At the voice communicator’s position Deke Slayton, John Glenn, and Al Shepard congratulate each other happily. Throughout the flight the astronaut’s voice has come back in familiar phrases, reporting his activities as if he were still seated in the Mercury procedures trainer, running through just one more rehearsal for the real thing. There had been a slight problem with one of the manual modes of attitude control, but it was not of any great significance and the pilot went through his maneuvers as scheduled. The project Mercury team could chalk up another smooth operation.

But now Grissom’s voice is lost. He must have unplugged his microphone from Liberty Bell 7’s radio. He is getting out of the spacecraft. Walt Williams and Al Shepard walk over to the recovery operations room to hear the reports coming in from the carrier.

A moment later, the flight controller’s loop announces, “The astronaut is in the water.”

Startled faces in the control center turn to the glassed opening that leads to the recovery operations room. A momentary hush marks the sudden introduction of tension into an atmosphere that seconds previously had been warm with success.

Grissom is in the water -- but in the control center everyone knows that he should have stepped directly from the spacecraft into the horse collar -- without touching the water.

Before this bulletin can be digested, a second report issues from the loop -- the spacecraft has sunk but Grissom succeeded in removing the camera and tape recorder tape before he made his egress.

Surprised gasps from those familiar with the spacecraft indicates their awareness that the film cannot be removed from the camera, nor the tape from the recorder, without the use of a screwdriver and thirty minutes of the astronaut’s time.

Something is definitely wrong. Mounting concern fills the slow passing of minutes as operations awaits further word.

Finally it comes -- Gus is safe in the helicopter but the spacecraft is definitely lost. Tension eases, smiles return, but most of the faces in the control room are still perplexed; how had the spacecraft been lost?

The question is answered when Walt Williams strides back from the recovery operations room, plugs his headset into his console, and announces, “The explosive hatch apparently fired prematurely, the spacecraft filled with water and sank, but Grissom has been recovered and is in good condition in the helicopter.”

As we flew out to Grand Bahama Island, the number one topic of conversation was the apparent inadvertent firing of the hatch. The main purpose of the coming debriefing would be to determine what had happened. At that time we did not know that we would spend months making exhaustive tests to determine the reason for the hatch failure, and that in the end it would be as great a mystery as it was at that moment. In time, only one thing became clear. Gus had not inadvertently hit the hatch-actuating mechanism. This was not to be proven until nine months later on our first orbital flight. For when John Glenn actuated the explosive hatch of his spacecraft, the firing pin rebounded and hit his hand, producing a small bruise. It was his only “injury” of the flight. Every astronaut who used the explosive hatch had a similar mark. But Gus did not have a bruise anywhere along his right arm, so it was evident that he could not have struck the firing pin. What caused the automatic hatch to open will never be known. But it was not Gus, for had he inadvertently actuated it, he would have had the astronauts’ badge, a little bruise.

Chapter 14: A hero born

Theme: April 1961 to March 1962. Describes the public relations problems of a program in the national limelight, and the gradual adaptation of the astronauts and other project personnel to the demands of the press.

Like a monster serpent stretched along the sand, Cocoa Beach lies between the Banana River and the Atlantic Ocean about half way down the Florida peninsula. At the north end the head bulges into the sea with fang-like towers from which it spits forth flaming projectiles. Down its sandy back runs the central stripe of Highway 1A for fourteen miles until it ends in a scaly wooded tail at Melbourne beach. Cocoa Beach has one main artery from which all its business is nourished. Most of its buildings are motels, restaurants, beach apartments and other temporary accommodations, and the transient population frequently outnumbers the permanent citizens. Except for an occasional convention, or the few tourists who are side-tracked before they can get farther down the peninsula to the more well-known recreation spots, the motels cater primarily to the visiting engineers and technicians who are sent by their companies to work at the Cape. One to two weeks before a manned flight however, a peculiar transformation takes place. Large vans marked with the insignia of the television networks appear in the motel parking lots. Black tentacles of wire bundles stretch from the trucks through gaping windows to portable switchboards. Roofs sprout unruly antenna wigs. The staccato rhythms of typewriters and teletype machines compete with the Muzak. In the evening, restaurants are filled, the clubs bulge, and Cocoa Beach swells with suspense-tinged gaiety.

In this society there are two elite classes. One is made up of those magic names of the networks: Cronkite, Bergman, Hackes, Neal, Kaplow, whose faces are familiar visitors to everyone’s home, but are rarely seen in the flesh. The other aristocracy is a group of individuals known primarily to those who work in the aerospace industry or cover it for the public. These less familiar names are Gilruth, Williams, Kraft, White, Douglas, and of course, Carpenter, Glenn, Schirra, and Cooper. The relationship between these two groups was a strangely schizophrenic one on both sides.

The aristocracy of the press was as anxious as all Americans to see the project a success, and to have our country catch up with the Russians. On the other hand, they wanted to pass on the real flavor of the effort. They sensed that behind closed gates there must be an interesting drama of day to day decisions being played out by the principal actors, but they had immediate access only to the NASA newsroom and its prime spokesman, Shorty Powers. It was partly, therefore, with a sense of frustration that they filled the bars, looking for the opportunity to button-hole the project engineers when they returned from the Cape in the evening.

The NASA staff also had a clearly ambivalent reaction to the press. They were well aware that they occupied the center stage, and that what appeared in news media would have a strong effect upon the life of the project. It was, however, this very realization that annoyed them. Most of the senior staff of the Space Task Group had been drawn from the old NACA, where they had been responsible for research projects which rarely came to the public attention. Never before Mercury had they had to make decisions with an eye on political implications and the reaction of the public. They were used to making their decisions entirely on the basis of technical requirements, and perhaps a good deal of the success of the project can be credited to the fact that they continued to do so.

However, public relations problems continued to arise and their annoyance with the need to take time to consider these questions led to an antipathy towards public affairs activities. This attitude resulted in the public affairs matters being left as much as possible to Shorty Powers, who was not bashful about acting as the project spokesman. This raised some criticism that he was monopolizing the publicity spotlight. Nevertheless, Shorty was strongly encouraged to take full responsibility for the public relations area, and technical personnel were discouraged from giving any information to the press.

The attitude of senior management tended to make the technical staff sensitive to the danger of issuing statements embarrassing to the agency. This policy frequently resulted in Shorty Powers not being fully informed on agency decisions, officials concluding that information could be kept from the public by not relaying it even to their press relations staff. Thus, Powers was sometimes caught in a position of apparently misinforming the press. Frequently, too, he had to deal with the problem that the information sought by the press was classified and could not be made available. In one such case, a delay in John Glenn’s launch was due to a booster malfunction which could not be detailed because of security regulations. Despite the difficulties presented by this half-cordial, half-suspicious attitude on the part of both parties, the project wound up with an extremely good public image. It was well deserved, in view of the high level of success of the program. At the same time, it was an overly benign, sugar-coated icing which covered the layers of the human effort by which the project was nourished.

Their attitudes partially conditioned by management, the astronauts tended to look upon public relations activities with the same distaste shown by other technical personnel. Their reactions to the publicity surrounding their flights provided examples of the differences between the men.

Perhaps no part of this story is more interesting than the publicity build-up given to the man that Life Magazine characterized as “destined for great things” -- John Glenn. Why was he singled out from the other six for the nation’s adulation? Two Americans and two Russians had already been in space, and more were waiting to make even longer flights. But this man so moved the nation that Time Magazine reported, “Every so often a nation produces a genuine hero, raised above the multitude by acts of valor or virtue in times of war, crisis, or national frustration. He may come from any walk of life, so long as he fills the nation’s need to elevate its vision and swell its pride. From Washington to Sergeant York, from Lindbergh to MacArthur, the U.S. has had its share of heroes. But few have encountered the universal approval and adulation that last week engulfed astronaut John Glenn.”

John attracted this attention with an unusual mixture of personal characteristics: a typically American family background, an attractive personality, skill in working with people, and an unusually intense interest in the political and social impact which the project could make upon this nation. Beginning in the spring of 1961 and continuing for a year until the time of his own flight, there was a gradual building of publicity on John Glenn. Here was an opportunity to see a hero born.

Chapter 15: To return in flames

Theme: September 1961 to February 1962. After months of frustration due to weather and equipment problems, Project Mercury reaches its goal, but not without some tight moments that test the mettle of those on the ground as well as the man in space.

10:50 A.M. Tuesday, February 20. John Glenn is passing overhead at the beginning of his second orbit around the earth. In the control center the deliberately paced communications procedure covers the growing elation. After two months of frustrating delay for weather and equipment, the flight is proceeding with amazing smoothness.

John is experiencing a slight problem with the manual control system. It is obviously nothing serious, but it gives the ground controllers an opportunity to participate in the flight by helping the astronaut to analyze the problem. Word has been passed that the President himself will speak to John over a special radio telephone circuit. But some technical problem keeps the President’s voice from going out over the radio. Well, never mind. Perhaps next time around.

Throughout the world, thousands of engineers and technical specialists are manning communications stations and recovery facilities. The wall charts in the control center and in the recovery room indicate that everyone is on station. In another three hours the spacecraft will land and Project Mercury will have accomplished its goal of manned orbital flight and safe recovery.

In the main room of the control center the flight monitors eye their instruments carefully, watching for any sign of trouble. But everything is within tolerance. In the back room, communications experts are watching their oscillographs, making sure that the information flows to the flight controllers. From time to time they also check the more than fifty indications which are not normally displayed in the main room.

Huddled over one instrument, a technician notices that segment 21 is not normal. It is probably unimportant, but the rules say report all unusual indications. So he hands a note to one of the runners who move about the control room dropping messages into the baskets on the flight controllers’ desks. A few moments later, Chris Kraft, sorting rapidly through his papers, comes across the note, “Segment 21 indicates landing bag deployed.”

But the deployment of the landing bag should be the final operation prior to landing. This bag protects the spacecraft against a jarring landing impact and is normally lowered at the last moment, just before touchdown. The vital heat shield, which must be in place to protect the spacecraft from the reentry fireball, forms the base of the bag. Thus, if the bag should be deployed in space, it would result only in disaster. Without making any announcement over the flight director’s loop, Chris Kraft leaves his desk to speak with Al Shepard and systems monitor Don Arabian at the voice communicator’s station. Neither had heard or seen anything to suggest that the heat shield is loose. It clearly seems impossible, but it is too important not to be checked carefully.

Outwardly there is no change. To those watching through the one-way glass from the visitors’ gallery overlooking the control room and to the reporters crowded into the Mercury press site, all is normal. Now a complicated drama of engineering sleuthing begins as the entire facilities of Project Mercury are brought into play. John Yardley, McDonnell’s chief engineer at the Cape, is called out of the VIP viewing area onto the floor and given the job of running down the problem. Soon engineers back in the Mercury hangar are pouring over blueprints while others are on the phone to the McDonnell Aircraft plant in St. Louis and to the Project Mercury headquarters in Virginia, getting answers to the numerous questions raised by segment 21.

At the moment, the heat shield seems to be in its normal position, but if the release mechanism has actuated, it might be held in place only by the retro rockets strapped over the shield. Segment 21 could be a false signal, but it is impossible to be sure. The safest course appears to be to keep the retro package on through reentry in hopes that if the shield has been released it will be kept in place by the retro rocket straps.

Still, there are bothersome questions unanswered. Wind tunnel tests have demonstrated that reentry with the retro rockets is possible, but will it be safe in actual flight when the spacecraft generates temperatures as hot as the surface of the sun within a few inches of John Glenn’s head? Moreover, when the retro pack burns off, will the pressure of the air itself against the heat shield be enough to keep it in place? Or will the motions of the spacecraft quickly pull it loose and leave the inner shell of the spacecraft unprotected like wax paper in a flame?

Concern mounts among the flight controllers who are aware of the dangers. Al Shepard counsels against worrying John Glenn with the problem. So, unaware of the tension below him, John carries on with his flight plan while studying the slight problem he is having with the attitude control system. Occasionally he gets a somewhat cryptic query from the ground about the heat shield. Is his landing bag switch in the “off” position? Can he hear a “bumping” noise behind him where the heat shield is? Too fascinated by the magnificent view out the spacecraft window, too busy evaluating the control characteristics of the spacecraft, John shrugs off these occasional inquiries without interest.

The first indication he has of a departure from normal procedures comes after the retro rockets have been fired, from flight controller George Guthrie at the Texas station. “We are recommending that the retro rockets not, I say again, not, be jettisoned. This means that you will have to override the .05 g switch which is expected to occur at 04 43 53. This is approximately 4½ minutes from now. This also means that you will have to retract the scope manually. Do you understand?”

There is a slight pause. I could feel John’s surprise, his quick search for the reason behind this decision from the ground. He could not account for it, and his normal reaction would be to follow his own best judgment. But eighteen years of military life have also developed a habit of following orders. “Roger, understand.”

John carries out his instructions carefully, and exactly as they came from the control center. Just before he passes out of range, Al Shepard gives him a brief explanation for the decision not to jettison the retro rockets. Now all the world is aware of the impending problem.

“This is Friendship 7 going to fly-by-wire. I’m down to about 15% on manual.” John’s voice fades away as he enters the black-out period. Within the control center the tension is clear from the positions of the monitors; a living still photo, each man frozen in place, almost afraid to move, waiting for the first static-choked words that will indicate John is safely through the flaming reentry. Bill Douglas, the astronauts’ flight surgeon, head bowed, hands folded, joins the multitudes of Americans at their TV sets in a brief prayer.

Far above, Friendship 7 hurtles through its severest test. For the moment completely out of touch with the world, John sits alone in the middle of a fireball. The needles of his attitude indicators leap wildly back and forth, while fiery chunks of metal fly across the window just above his head. Then his voice is heard again. “Hello, Cape, Friendship 7. Do you receive? Over.” Flame-tested, man and metal are returning to earth.

Chapter 16: A view from space

Theme: July 1961 to July 1962. This chapter describes the attempts to develop a program of scientific observations for Project Mercury. Initially the program was impeded by the lack of enthusiasm among scientists and the opposition of the project engineers.

Suspended above the earth, enveloped in blackness, the astronaut has a spectacular view of the earth below. Our world is clothed in blue, green, and aqua, trimmed with lacy white clouds. But the view is scientifically revealing as well as beautiful, because so much of the earth’s surface can be seen at one time. This space-eye view banishes the trees and makes clear the outline of the forest Problems with which men have struggled for centuries become clear at a glance. Perhaps no fact was more difficult for men to accept than that the earth is round. With a major intellectual effort, a few of the Greek philosophers came to this conclusion, but the idea was lost again before Columbus’ time. And yet one glance out the Mercury spacecraft window at the clear arc of the horizon demonstrates this beyond doubt. Involved mathematical and philosophical arguments, or long trips across the ocean, are not necessary to prove to the astronaut that the earth is a sphere. He has but to look.

There are many other examples of this same sort of revelation. In the late nineteenth century, the great naval scientist Matthew Maury struggled laboriously with thousands of separate wind direction readings to demonstrate that hurricanes are circular winds moving about a central eye. Yet photographs of Hurricane Debbie taken from the Mercury spacecraft show clearly the spiral arms of clouds circling into the storm’s center. These, of course, are examples of already known facts which can be more dramatically demonstrated with space photography. In addition, there are many new facts which may be learned by putting man’s eye in space.

But it was not easy to develop interest in man as a space scientist. The Mercury engineers were concerned with building vehicles, not in developing uses for them. At the same time, astronomers, astrophysicists, and other basic scientists who might make use of manned space vehicles, were not enthusiastic. Some, having invested great effort in developing telescopes and other earth-based scientific equipment, felt that more could be learned by observations from earth than by putting scientific equipment into space. Other scientists felt that data could be collected most efficiently with automatic equipment in unmanned satellites. Man would only get in the way.

Both John Glenn and Scott Carpenter had a great interest in the scientific observations that could be made from the spacecraft. At John’s urging I attended several meetings of NASA astronomers to get help. While many had deep reservations, Dr. John O’Keefe and Dr. Jocelyn Gill became enthusiastic. They developed a program of observations and John O’Keefe came down to the Cape to brief both John and Scott on what they could do that might be of value to science.

Unfortunately, the malfunction of Friendship 7’s control system occupied John Glenn’s attention and kept him from carrying out most of the scientific observations that he had intended to make. Nevertheless, he did have one surprise which kept John O’Keefe busy over his calculations for some time. During the first orbit as he approached the coast of California just before the sun peeked over the edge of the earth, John looked up to find himself moving through a field of “fireflies.” The sight was beautiful, a complete surprise. At first he felt they must be foreign objects in orbit about the earth. But John O’Keefe’s calculations soon showed that they could not appear to be moving as slowly as John described them unless they came from the spacecraft. This was later proved by Scott Carpenter, who was able to produce clouds of them by tapping the side of the spacecraft, and by Gordon Cooper, who could see them coming from one small jet in front of his window. Apparently they were small ice crystals formed from the thrusters and the water cooling system, and were primarily visible just before sunrise. While this discovery was not of great scientific importance, it illustrated the value of having a man in the spacecraft. Had there been only automatic equipment aboard, we would never have known about the “fireflies.”

John made another more significant observation which was not understood at the time. He saw a hazy layer of light at the horizon during the night. But he over-estimated its height above the horizon so that John O’Keefe, knowing there could not be a layer of material that far out in space, concluded that it must be a reflection in the window from the lights inside the cockpit. Later, Scott Carpenter also reported the haze layer. Like John, he over-estimated its height, but in addition, he made some precise measurements which demonstrated its actual location. Both he and John had been fooled by the natural tendency to over-estimate angular distances at the horizon -- the effect which makes the moon appear larger at the horizon than when it is overhead.

Scott was also able to demonstrate that this hazy layer was related to a phenomenon called “air glow”, with which scientists had been familiar from observations from the earth, but had never been able to see in its full extent. From his flight emerged a picture of the earth, surrounded by a bubble of hazy gas which can be seen by the astronaut at night like a great halo, circling the earth at the horizon. Thus, even when there is no moon to light the earth’s surface, the astronaut will always know where the earth lies.

Other experiments were tried on all the Mercury flights with varying degrees of success. But enough useful information was obtained to interest the scientific community in the opportunities presented by manned space flight. The NASA Office of Space Sciences organized a special division for the purpose of developing research proposals for manned spacecraft, and the National Academy of Sciences began to develop interest in having scientists take part in space flights. Besides demonstrating that man could safely travel in space and operate a space vehicle, the Mercury program had also shown that once there, man could function effectively as a scientist.

Chapter 17: Horizon scanner

Theme: March to June 1962. Covers the preparation and flight of Scott Carpenter. This flight provided a good example of what the man could do when the automatic equipment failed, but it also raised a number of questions regarding the flight plans and flight monitoring procedures.

“Aurora 7, Aurora 7, this is California Com Tech, California Com Tech. Do you hear? Over.”

In the control center everyone waits anxiously to hear from Scott. Minutes before, as he was leaving Hawaii station he reported a problem with his attitude control system. Now there are less than two minutes to retrofire. If the spacecraft is not in proper attitude at the time the retro rockets are fired, it will not reenter, but will stay in orbit for days while its oxygen supply gradually runs out.

“Hello California Com Tech. You are loud and clear. How me?” Scott is over the California coast, ninety seconds to retrofire.

“Aurora 7, this is Cap Com. Are you in retro attitude?”

An audible whisper of relief ripples through the control center as Scott reports he is in proper attitude for retrofire. However, his auto pilot is not working; he will have to control attitude manually.

This is the most critical maneuver of the flight. There is only one chance. In previous orbital flights the retrofire had always been controlled automatically. Now the auto pilot has failed and man will have his opportunity to show what he can do.

I am not concerned because I have seen Scott control retrofire time after time in the trainer, but I can see that a number of the engineers in the control center are quite disturbed. They have faith in the auto pilot, but they are less convinced of man’s ability.

Thirty seconds before firing the retro rockets, the retro sequence will begin.

“Chris.” Don Arabian, the capsule engineer is calling to flight director Chris Kraft. “Have him try the ASCS (auto pilot) during retro sequence to see if the orientation mode will hold.”

Just before retrofire the auto pilot shifts into a new mode, and Don apparently feels that in this mode it may hold attitude properly even though it has been malfunctioning before. Chris agrees with him, and sends along the order.

“Retro sequence is green.” Scott’s voice reports the beginning of the critical sequence.

“Check ASCS quickly to see if orientation mode will hold.” From the California station Al Shepard relays Chris Kraft’s order.

High above, Scott reaches down to the control panel and flips a switch. Immediately the spacecraft noses down, out of the proper attitude for retrofire. His right hand whips back to turn the switch off while he pulls at the control stick with his left to raise the nose. The seconds rush by. Four, three, two, one, zero.

Scott fights the controls to bring the spacecraft back into proper attitude. It is almost there, tilted slightly to one side, when he feels the kick of the first rocket. Five seconds later the second rocket fires, and in another five, the third. The control stick swings rapidly while Scott counteracts the action of each retro rocket as it tries to twist the spacecraft one way or the other. His eyes move quickly from the periscope between his knees to the swaying instruments on the panel and on up to the view of the horizon through his window. Finally, all three rockets have burned out.

“How did the attitudes hold, Scotty?”

“O.K., I think they held well, Al.”

In the control center there is a brief cheer. Chris is smiling again.

But now there is another concern. During the retrofire, Scott made use of two manual control systems simultaneously for more positive double authority. As a result he used more fuel than expected, and now one tank is empty. Switching to the other, Scott nurses the attitude of the spacecraft carefully, trying to keep it in the proper orientation for reentry.

At the control center the trajectory specialist reports to Chris that the indicated landing point is two hundred miles farther down range than had been expected. Can there be an error in the computer? No, the answer has been checked and double checked.

Before this message can be sent to Scott, he enters the communications blackout period. Once again tension takes over the control room as we wait for the familiar voice to come over the control center loudspeakers and let us know that he has survived the period of peak reentry heating. But we have forgotten that since he is landing two hundred miles farther away, he will be beyond the range of the spacecraft radio when he comes through the blackout. So nothing recognizable comes from our control center speakers.

Scott is completely alone now, carrying on a one-way conversation with the tape recorder, since no one else hears. Smashing through the atmosphere, the surface outside Scott’s window heats to a glowing green. Smoke and flames can be seen trailing backwards. A small yellow ring marks the point where the flow of hot gases around his cabin converges behind the spacecraft. Now the acceleration builds. Three, four, five g’s. His body is nearly seven times its normal weight, over half a ton.

The attitude control fuel is exhausted and the spacecraft begins to oscillate more and more wildly. Scott reaches up and flicks the switch, deploying the drogue chute. Immediately the little white canopy swings out behind him, and the spacecraft straightens up. Now for the main chute. His right hand moves to the safety switch which keeps the main parachute from being deployed inadvertently. Carefully watching the altimeter, he reaches with his left hand for the manual deploy handle, but it is not needed, for now, through the window, he can see the red and white candy-striped cloth waving back and forth above him.

“Aurora 7, Aurora 7, Cape Cap Com. Over.” A thousand miles to the northeast, relayed by down range aircraft, Gus’ voice comes from the Cape. Weak and static-clogged, it is barely intelligible. But one important message gets through. “Your landing point is two hundred miles long. We will jump air rescue people to you in about one hour.”

Finally with a sudden shock, he is back on earth. Three orbits have taken less than five hours, but because he has gone one-hundredth of an orbit too far, it will be nearly five hours more before he arrives at the Grand Turk debriefing site.

Chapter 18: The chimp flight

Theme: July to October 1962. Preparation and flight of Wally Schirra in Sigma 7. An almost perfect mission which demonstrated the improving effectiveness of the spacecraft systems but left the operations group unchallenged.

Scott’s flight in Aurora 7 had given the ground control center its greatest fright. The delay in detecting the auto pilot problem which led to a last minute decision to control attitude manually during retro fire, and the exhaustion of the control fuel prior to the end of the flight, led to a review of all mission flight procedures. More frequent checks of the control systems were ordered for the next flight and larger reserves of fuel set aside for the retrofire and reentry. In addition, it was decided that the pilot was being overburdened and that his schedule of activities during the flight should be reduced. Therefore the flight plan was cleared of almost all of the scientific activities, and very little was scheduled other than checks of the spacecraft systems.

Wally’s flight was a particularly smooth one. Everyone in the control center and around the range appeared relaxed and confident. Only one small problem was encountered. The cabin temperature began to rise, but after careful adjustment, finally leveled off. The auto pilot behaved beautifully through the flight, several changes having been made to improve the system since John and Scott’s flights. In all, it was a triumph for the automatic control systems which performed efficiently -- so efficiently that the mission could be characterized as a “chimp flight” -- one in which the man was almost unneeded.

It was for that very reason, however, that many of us felt that this flight did not really test the capability of our operations group. The project management and the flight controllers, whose primary concern was flight safety, were happiest with an uneventful flight. Yet the real mark of operational capability is the ability to overcome malfunctions, and to take care of emergencies.

Nevertheless, two important results were achieved by this flight. First, management was encouraged to schedule a one-day mission, providing the first really significant manned space flight mission which the U.S. has achieved. And second, the control center at Cape Canaveral and the world-wide network procedures were modified in ways which were to be critically tested in Gordon Cooper’s flight in Faith 7.