"Live From Cape Canaveral": Covering the Space Race, From Sputnik to Today (7 page)

Alan Shepard slips into his Mercury capsule, named
Freedom Seven,
for launch.
(NASA).

Three days later, May 5, 1961, the countdown moved into its final minute, and I could hear my own voice grow with anticipation as I told our NBC audience this should be it. My co-anchor, Merrill Mueller, and I were in and outside our broadcast trailer with a continuous audio report of everything happening. We had been airing all of NASA’s reports live and I reported, “Everything looks good. The weather is go, and Mercury Control says Alan Shepard and his
Freedom Seven
are go.” Then I switched. “No
w for the launch of the first American in space, here’s the final countdown from Colonel John ‘Shorty’ Powers in Mercury Control.”

“This is Mercury Control. Alan Shepard and the range are green…”

T-minus seven
,
six
,
five…

Alan Shepard braced his booted feet against
Freedom Seven
’s floor.

Four…

Shepard had his hand up near the stopwatch on the panel. He had to initiate the timer at the moment of liftoff in case the automatic clock failed.

Three…

Left hand on the abort handle. The escape tower was loaded.

Two…

Shepard took a deep breath.

One…

One last reminder to himself: “Okay Buster, make it work.”

Zero…

Shepard heard Deke Slayton sing out, “
IGNITION!”

Rumbling far beneath him. Pumps spinning at full speed. Fuel gushing through lines…Alan Shepard tensed his body.

His rocket had been lit.

“LIFTOFF!”
Slayton called.

Freedom Seven
swayed.

“You’re on your way, José!” Slayton shouted, referring to a comedian friend who had a routine called “The Nervous Astronaut.”

“Roger, liftoff, and the clock has started,” Shepard called out. Now he felt the power. “This is
Freedom Seven
. Fuel is go. Oxygen is go. Cabin holding at 5.5 PSI.”

Now he was in his element. This was what Alan Shepard was born to do. He was the quintessential test pilot. He was the most relaxed, most assured person along the entire spacecoast.

Streaking toward the flaming Redstone in F–106 jets were astronauts Scott Carpenter and Wally Schirra. They were geared to chase and observe the Redstone as long as they could before it sped from sight. Tracking and search planes cruised from low-level to stratospheric heights, and the sea was dotted with swift boats and navy ships, all coiled to spring toward
Freedom Seven
’s rescue if needed.

At the center of Cape Canaveral’s fifteen thousand acres was a makeshift press site crowded with trailers, television trucks, prefab offices, bleachers, high viewing stands, camera mounts, a blizzard of antennas, and a snake forest of cabling along the ground. The fourth estate was
linked to sending and receiving facilities in every major city around the planet. NBC itself was hooked up to sixteen networks worldwide including the BBC and the armed forces, and my broadcast partner, Merrill Mueller, and I were reporting every single thought and fact we could muster as others screamed, “Go! Go! Go!” while
Freedom Seven
climbed higher and higher into space. Tough and grizzled news veterans unashamedly cried as they pounded fists on wooden railings, against their equipment, against the defenseless backs of their compatriots in support of Alan Shepard.

Beyond the Cape, along the causeways and beaches and lining the roadways, a great army had assembled to witness an epochal moment in history. Half a million men, women, and children in cars, in RVs, on trucks, on motorcycles, on trailers, on anything that would roll had gathered, nudged, pushed, shoved, and squeezed as close as they c
ould to the security perimeters of the Cape to watch and, most important to them, to shout encouragement.

Two thousand–plus journalists stood fast on the press-site mound watching Alan Shepard rocket into space.
(USAF).

They went mad at the sight of the Redstone breaking above the tree line; their combined chorus of hope and prayer was almost as mighty as the roar of the rocket.

Throughout the area now referred to as the spacecoast, people left their homes to stand outside and look toward the Cape. They stood atop cars and trucks and rooftops. They left their morning coffee and bacon and eggs in restaurants to walk outside. They left beauty parlors and barbershops with sheets around their shoulders. And on the ocean itself, surfers ceased their pursuit of waves and stood on beaches, transfixed.

Fire was born, the dragon howled, and Redstone levitated with its precious human cargo. That was but the beginning. When the bright flame came into view, even before the deep pure sound washed across the towns and beaches, something wonderful happened.

Men and women sank slowly to their knees, praying. Others were crying.

Time stood still.

F
lame lifted Alan Shepard higher, faster. And up there, all alone, America’s first astronaut was pleased.
Not bad at all
, he thought.
This is smoother than anything I ever expected. Hang in there
,
guy
, he told himself.
It’s going beautifully.

Then, he spoke to Mercury Control. “This is
Freedom Seven.
Two-point-five-G. Cabin five-point-five. Oxygen is go. The main bus is twenty-four, and the isolated battery is twenty-nine.”

A comfortable, assured “Roger” came back from Deke Slayton.

Shepard was at two-and-a-half times his normal weight. So far the flight had been a piece of cake. Flame beneath the Redstone grew longer as the outside air grew thinner. He was through the smoothest part; he was running into the rutted road, the barrier he had to defeat before he could leave the atmosphere behind.

Redstone was pushing with hammering raw energy into the reefs of Max Q, the zone of maximum dynamic pressure where the forces of flight and ascent challenged its structural soundness.

Buffeting began, an upward gutsy climb for the Redstone over invisible deep and jagged potholes. Shepard’s helmet slammed against his contoured couch and inches before him, the instrument panel became a blur.

A thousand pounds of pressure, for every square foot of
Freedom Seven
, was trying to crack the capsule like an eggshell. He was being pounded from all sides and for a split second Shepard considered calling Slayton, but instantly changed his mind. He reminded himself any sort of transmission at this point could be interpreted as fear, and it could send Mercury Control into a tizzy. It might even trigger an abort by someone overzealously guarding his safety.

The Redstone slipped through the hammering blows into the smoothness beyond. Out of Max Q. Shepard grinned. He still had all his teeth, and he keyed his mike.

“Okay, it’s a lot smoother now. A lot smoother.”

“Roger,” Slayton said calmly.

It was time to smile.

L
ouise Shepard stared at the television, watching the rocket magically lift her husband into space. She tried desperately to hear, but their girls were out of control, wild, cheering, and shrieking at the top of their lungs.

That was their father in that rocket.

This was their moment.

And her moment, too. She smiled, bringing a hand to her lips. “Go, Alan,” she said quietly and only to herself. “Go, sweetheart.”

Mercury Control called out the time hack. “Plus two minutes…”

Alan Shepard was now twenty-five miles up and gaining speed, headed into high flight with the forces of gravity mashing him down into his couch.

Damn it hurt, but it felt terrific. What a ride! He keyed his mike: “All systems are go.”

F
reedom Seven
’s flight was prime time for radio and television news coverage, and we were enjoying every moment. The listeners were so many they were not countable, and I was blessed to be on the air with the unflappable Merrill Mueller, a veteran’s veteran. He’d done his newscasts through raging battles in World War II, and he’d been the voice that reported the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay in 1945 from the deck of the USS
Missouri
. Losing his cool was not an option.

We had a thousand things to say about Alan Shepard, his family, the mission, the Redstone,
Freedom Seven.
But we’d never seen a man disappearing into bright sunlight—a single point of silvery flame leaving Earth.

Merrill was the master, but we had been on the air all morning and we both were running dry on things to say. Our voices fading, Merrill swallowed hard. Then the master found one last masterful thought…

“He looks so lonely up there
…”

The sixteen worldwide NBC Radio networks fell silent.

T
he rocket’s thrust increased Shepard’s weight sixfold, and he found it difficult to speak. The growing force of gravity squeezed his vocal cords and he drew on experience, on the techniques he had mastered catapulting off carriers in fighter jets. Slayton heard him clearly.

He was struggling, but he was smiling broadly inside his helmet. End of powered flight was near.

Three, two, one, cutoff!

The Redstone stopped burning.

Above Shepard’s head a large solid-propellant rocket fired, spewing thrust from three canted nozzles. These broke connecting links to pull the escape rocket and tower away. They were no longer needed.

Next, more rockets fired, and
Freedom Seven
separated from its Redstone. A new light flashed on the instrument panel.

“This is
Seven
. Cap sep is green.”

Shepard and
Freedom Seven
were on their own, moving through space at more than four thousand miles per hour.

“Roger,” Slayton confirmed.

Mercury Control had its ears on. They wanted to hear what it was like to be up there.

Well, first, only seconds ago Shepard weighed a thousand pounds. Now he weighed less than a thousandth of a pound.

“I’m free!” he shouted.

“Does Louise know?” Deke joked.

Alan laughed and moved within his restraints to feel the freedom of weightlessness. It was…well, hell, it was wonderful and marvelous and a miracle. That’s what it was. Were he not strapped in, he would have floated about in total relaxation. No up, no down, and as John Glenn had posted on the capsule’s instrument panel before Alan entered, “No handball playing in here.” A missing washer and bits of dust drifted before him. He smiled.

No rush of wind crossing the skin of
Freedom Seven
despite its speed. No friction. No turbulence. Outside, the silence of ghosts reigned.

But inside, his Mercury capsule had its own pressurized atmosphere where ghosts were real. They made their own sounds. Inverters moaned. Gyroscopes whirred. Cooling fans spun. Cameras snapped. Radios hummed. They were the voices of
Freedom Seven.

Alan Shepard took to space with fierce pleasure as he felt
Freedom Seven
slowly turning around, and he realized it was time to go flying. He wrapped his gloved right hand around the three-axis control stick.

“Switching to manual pitch,” he radioed Mercury Control.

“Roger.”

He moved the stick. Small jets of hydrogen peroxide gas shot into space from exterior nozzles. Instantly he felt the reaction as the capsule’s blunt end raised and lowered in response to his commands. He couldn’t believe how easy
Freedom Seven
was to fly. It was doing precisely what he asked.

“Pitch is okay,” he reported. “Switching to manual yaw.”

“Roger. Roll.”

Again
Seven
moved on invisible rails. Shepard wasn’t just a passenger. He was flying his spacecraft, controlling its attitude. “Finally,” he shouted aloud, “we’re first with something!”

He checked his flight plan.

Fun time, he smiled, moving to look through the periscope at the Earth below.

Damn
, he cursed.

While on the launch pad he had checked the periscope and stared into a bright sky. Immediately he had moved in filters and now, looking through the scope, instead of a brilliant blue Earth, he saw only a gray planet.

He reached for the filter knob and as he did, the pressure gauge on his left wrist bumped against the abort handle. He chastised himself. Sure, the escape tower was gone, and hitting the abort handle might not be a problem, but this was not the time to play guessing games.

Shepard looked again through the periscope. Even through the gray, the sun’s reflection from Earth below was enough to give him a picture.

“On the periscope,” he radioed. “What a beautiful view!”

“Roger.”

“Cloud cover over Florida, three to four-tenths on the eastern coast, obscured up through Hatteras.”

Shepard spoke of the rich green of Lake Okeechobee’s shores and the spindly curve of the Florida Keys. He shifted his eyes to see the Florida panhandle extending west and saw Pensacola clearly. On the horizon he caught a glimpse of Mobile and said, “There, just beyond, just out of my view is New Orleans.” He gazed across Georgia, to the Carolinas, and saw the coastline of Cape Hatteras and beyond.