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”!