"Live From Cape Canaveral": Covering the Space Race, From Sputnik to Today (8 page)

Then he looked straight down and studied the Bahamian islands through broken cloud cover. “What I’d give,” he said, “to have that filter out of there so I could see the beautiful green Bahamian waters and coral formations around those islands.”

He was now at his highest point, 116 miles. He reminded himself he had duties.
Freedom Seven
, obeying the intractable laws of celestial mechanics, was swinging into its downward curve, calculated to carry Shepard directly to the navy recovery teams waiting for him in the waters near Grand Bahama Island.

He was on the stick again, moving
Freedom Seven
to the proper angle to test-fire the three retro-rockets. “Five, four, three, two, one, retro angle,” Mercury Control confirmed.

“In retro attitude,” Shepard reported. “All green.”

“Roger.”

“Control is smooth.”

“Roger, understand. All going smooth.”

“Retro one,” Shepard shouted. The first rocket fired and shoved him back against his seat. “Very smooth,” he added.

“Roger, roger.”

“Retro two.” Another shove backward.

“Retro three. All three retros have fired.”

“All fired on the button,” Mercury Control confirmed.

The weightless wonderland vanished. Gravity was back.
Freedom Seven
was plunging into the atmosphere.

“Okay. This is
Freedom Seven…
my g-buildup is three…six…” His voice began to falter. “Nine…” he grunted, using the proven system of body-tightening and muscle rigidity to force the words through his throat.

“Roger,” Slayton acknowledged.

“Okay…Okay…” Shepard’s voice rose as the intensity of the struggle increased. Eleven times the normal force of gravity, getting close to “weighing” a full Earth ton. But he had pulled eleven-g loads in the centrifuge, and he knew he could keep right on working now.

He did.

“Coming through loud and clear,
Seven.
”

“Okay,” came the grunt.

“Okay…” They noticed the change in his voice. Lower pitch. The g-loads were fading.

“Okay…this is
Seven
, okay. Forty-five thousand feet. Uh, now forty thousand feet.”

Shepard was through the gauntlet. He had handled the punishing g-forces, the eye-popping deceleration, and 1,230 degrees of blazing reentry heat. He felt just dandy because during the scorching dive, his cabin temperature hit a peak of only 102 degrees while inside his suit the temperature rose to only 85. Just nice and toasty, he thought.

His altimeter showed 31,000 feet when Slayton’s voice reached him again. “
Seven
, your impact will be right on the button.”

Great news. Flight computations were perfect. So were the performances of the Redstone and the spacecraft.
Freedom Seven
was heading directly for the bull’s-eye on the Atlantic recovery-area target.

“This is
Seven
,” Shepard called. “Switching to recovery frequency.”

“Roger,
Seven
, read you switching to GBI.”

Slayton was eager to cut the hell out of Dodge as fast as he could. Shepard laughed aloud. He knew Gus would be right there with Deke, and the two would be burning sky, blazing their way to Grand Bahama Island so they could be on the ground when he arrived.

“Seven
, do you read?” came a new voice on the GBI line.

“I read,” Shepard called back.

He was aware the flight wasn’t quite over. He still had to reach water in good shape. That meant the parachute system had to work.

Perfectly.

Above him, panel covers snapped away in the wind.

“The drogue is green at twenty-one, and the periscope is out.”

Down went
Freedom Seven
and Alan Shepard. The altimeter unwound and aimed for ten thousand feet where the main chute was to open. If it failed, well, he already had a finger on the “pull like hell ring” that would release the reserve.

“Standing by for main.”

Freedom Seven
continued like the champ it had proven to be. “Through the periscope,” Shepard would later say, “I saw the most beautiful sight of the mission. That big orange-and-white monster blossomed above me so beautifully. It told me I was safe, all was well, I had done it, all of us had done it. I was home free.”

“Main on green,” he reported. “Main chute is reefed and it looks good.”

Freedom Seven
swayed back and forth as it dropped lower. Compared to moments in his immediate past, Shepard was tiptoeing gently toward the ocean instead of crash landing a jet fighter on a carrier deck.

He opened his helmet’s faceplate. Quickly he disconnected all hoses and snaps. He wanted nothing to impede a hasty exit just in case the water landing went haywire.

He braced himself for–

SPLASHDOWN!

“Into the water we went with a good pop!” Shepard said, laughing over a drink with me later. “Abrupt, but not bad. No worse than the kick in the butt when I’m catapulted off a carrier deck.”

The spacecraft tipped on its side, bringing water over the right porthole. He smacked the switch to release the reserve parachute that kept the capsule top-heavy. He was thinking about the chimp’s near disappearance beneath the ocean. He began checking the cabin for leaks. He was ready to punch out at the first sight of the wet stuff pouring in.

The water didn’t come, and he stayed dry. Shifting the center of gravity worked, and the capsule came back upright.

Planes roared overhead. “Cardfile Two Three,” he called. “This is
Freedom Seven
, would you please relay all is okay?”

“This is Two Three; roger that.”

“This is
Seven.
Dye marker is out. Everything is okay. Ready for recovery.”

Green dye spread brilliantly across the ocean surface from
Freedom Seven.

“
Seven
, this is Two Three. Rescue One will be at your location momentarily.”

It went like another practice run. Rescue One was overhead. Shepard opened the hatch, grabbed a harness dropped from the helicopter, and was winched aboard.

Rescue One turned for the prime recovery ship, the aircraft carrier USS
Lake Champlain
, and lowered itself gently onto the deck. “This is the best carrier landing I’ve ever made,” Shepard laughed.

He couldn’t wait to tell Deke and Gus and John and Gordo and Scott and Wally all about it.

They, the Mercury Seven, had done it!

A
lan Shepard’s success solidified questions for John Kennedy about America’s efforts in space. The young President knew the difference between American and Russian rockets. He accepted the fact that the Soviets had overwhelming superiority in size and power.

What the President also had come to realize was that in spite of appearances, the Russians were not ahead of America because they were better at science; it was the exact opposite. The Soviets had their monster boosters because they couldn’t build a smaller nuclear warhead. They needed the giants to get their five-ton, unsophisticated bombs to American targets. Our warheads, with the same destructive power, were much smaller. They needed only a third of the rocket power to reach their destinations.

For this reason, Kennedy was willing to take the long-range gamble that American science, technology, and industry would persevere and, with clearly defined goals, be able to surpass the Soviets.

At NBC we learned what the President was up to, and I jumped in. “Americans are going to the moon,” I reported, and my boss, Russ Tornabene, shouted down the phone line, “Barbree, I want you on this. Kennedy is speaking before Congress and it’s your story.”

Feeling a historic milestone in the making, I covered Kennedy’s
congressional address by closed-circuit television from the Cape Canaveral site where future astronauts would lift off for the moon. In ringing tones, the energetic President told an attentive Congress the nation should take longer strides, America should become the leading player in space, and the country should lead the world into a better future:

John F. Kennedy spoke, and Congress leapt to its feet with thundering applause. If the congressional reaction was any sign of the future, then his “new frontier” had absorbed new life and vitality. Despite the “Bay of Pigs” debacle and a rough start, Kennedy was on his way back. He had absolute confidence that this was a gamble his administration could not lose. Americans would be the first on the moon.

T
wo months later, Gus Grissom had his
Liberty Bell Seven
Mercury capsule loaded with one more item than Alan Shepard had had: a parachute.

“Damn, Gus,” argued NASA engineer Sam Beddingfield. “If you need it, you won’t have time to use it.”

“Get me the parachute, Sam,” Grissom demanded. “If something goes wrong, it’ll give me something to do until I hit.”

Beddingfield shook his head but stuffed a parachute in
Liberty Bell Seven
, and Grissom lifted off from the Mercury-Redstone launch pad on July 21, 1961. His flight was a photocopy of Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight—115 miles up, 300 miles down range. But that’s where any similarities to Shepard’s mission ended.

Following splashdown, Grissom prepared his Mercury capsule for helicopter recovery. He was lying back, waiting for hookup, when an explosion blasted away his hatch. The hatch, modified to use an explo
sive primer cord instead of the mechanical locks of Shepard’s capsule, had ignited.

Water rolled in and Grissom rolled out. He had to swim for his life as he watched the three-thousand-pound spacecraft slip beneath the waves.

Engineers scratched their heads. Some said the design of the capsule’s hatch made an accidental explosion impossible. They covered their asses by suggesting Grissom had panicked and triggered the hatch release. Grissom denied the charge repeatedly, insisting, “The damn thing just blew.” His fellow astronauts backed him all the way, and an accident review board cleared him of any wrongdoing.

Nevertheless, it left a bad taste in Grissom’s mouth that refused to go away.

The sinking of
Liberty Bell Seven
would not be the only event to throw cold water on Grissom’s perfect spaceflight. Sixteen days later, the Russians gave what was left of NASA’s pride another swift kick. A second Vostok spaceship, this one named
Eagle
, carried Major Gherman Titov, Yuri Gagarin’s backup pilot, into Earth orbit, where he played around in weightlessness a full day.

Project Mercury managers and the astronauts threw up their hands. They agreed that Redstone had done its job. But if there was to be any hope of keeping up with the Russians, it was time to get on with launching an American into orbit. And, most important, to get the job done before the end of 1961. History would record the Russians and Americans did it the same year.

But there was only one rocket in America’s stable capable of lifting the Mercury spacecraft into orbit. That was the Atlas ICBM. Atlas worked well with a nuclear warhead on its nose, but its thin stainless-steel skin collapsed under the weight of the Mercury spacecraft. Three times Atlas had left its launch pad with an unmanned Mercury spacecraft on its nose, two of those rockets exploded, dumping chunks of fiery debris into the Atlantic.

The White House told Mercury Operations director Walt Williams to fix it. The President wanted an American in orbit, and Williams was told, in no uncertain terms, “No more excuses.” Williams went after the
air force, who held the Atlas contract with NASA, and the job of setting things right went to the toughest test conductor around, a hulking six-foot-one Irish altar boy by the name of Thomas J. O’Malley.

Despite the failures, there seemed to be little concern around the Mercury-Atlas pad. Many thought the problems would resolve themselves. O’Malley called the launch team together. He gave them the new word: “The next son of a bitch who says no sweat, who tells me or anybody else we don’t have a problem, will ride the
toe of my boot out the door.” T. J., as he was known, was simply the tough, hard-nosed manager Atlas-Mercury needed. His hard-boiled attitude whipped the Pad 14 launch team into shape—a team ready to work 24–7 to turn the Atlas into a piece of reliable machinery.

The troublesome Atlas systems were modified, the fragile skin was given its own steel belt, and on September 13, 1961, five months after the last Atlas failure, the rocket was ready for another try. Atlas drilled its unmanned Mercury capsule into a perfect orbit, and after completing
one trip around Earth, a California tracking station fired the capsule’s retro-rockets and the spacecraft returned for a safe splashdown.

T. J. O’Malley ready to launch John Glenn, the first American, into Earth orbit. (O‘malley Collection).

NASA and the Atlas managers were pleased. O’Malley, the Irish altar boy, had gotten the job done.

J
ohn Glenn was ready. He’d been ready from the moment he was selected as an astronaut to be first in space, but Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov had shot the hell out of that plan. No more suborbital flights. Mission number three would go for orbit, and Glenn, as backup to both Shepard and Grissom, was in a perfect position. No astronaut had better credentials. Glenn was born in the heart of the great radio days. To the Marine Corps he was a public-relations dream, and to the public, he was Jack Armstrong, all-American.

He was ready, but NASA wasn’t. Not quite. John Glenn would have to endure the same humiliation that had tormented Alan Shepard. On November 29, 1961, the marine fighter pilot stepped aside while NASA loaded another chimpanzee, Enos, into a Mercury capsule. The Atlas and Mercury capsule performed flawlessly, but the chimp’s equipment failed and the electrical system and light tests went haywire.

Every one of Enos’s display’s buttons lit up wrong. He banged on every lever he could find, but that didn’t help. For his efforts, instead of a banana pellet, he was rewarded with a nasty shock.

Enos came out of orbit biting anything that moved. NASA went through a sort of scheduled greeting, but the chimp wouldn’t let handlers diaper him. Enos had a large erection, but this didn’t stop the proud officials. NASA news chief Jack King paraded the chimp before the media. This prompted a popular woman broadcaster to ask, “Jack, are you going to breed that chimp?”

S
atisfied with the chimp’s flight, NASA managers scheduled Glenn’s launch for December 20, 1961. Get into orbit before year’s end was the cry; it was to be a Christmas present for the boss, JFK. But Santa Claus’s elves were not on John Glenn’s side. No sooner than the Atlas
and Mercury capsule were erected on the launch pad, there began a series of frustrating delays. It would have broken the spirit of most, but Glenn and the launch team kept pushing ahead. Finally, on the morning of February 20, 1962, after eighty-two days of weather and mechanical delays, Glenn was strapped into the spacecraft he had named
Friendship Seven
. Lady luck smiled. It was try number ten, and the countdown nudged its way toward 9:47
A.M
. Eastern time.

But before Glenn could be launched, there was one last thing. The international community needed to certify that John Glenn was actually on board
Friendship Seven
—that he had not slipped down the gantry’s elevator before the structure had been moved. So, with the Mercury-Atlas standing alone on its launch pad, lead rocket engine engineer Lee Solid left the blockhouse and escorted the Federation Aeronautique Internationale representative to a clear view of
Friendship Seven
. From the blockhouse, astronaut Scott Carpenter told Glenn to wave. The FAI representative smiled. For the record, John Glenn was on board and test conductor T. J. O’Malley and his long-frustrated launch team moved the countdown clocks ahead.

John Glenn leaves for the launch pad.
(NASA).

The media gathered at Cape Canaveral’s press mound for John Glenn’s orbital flight. Inside its broadcast trailer, the NBC team is on the air. Left to right: news manager Russ Tornabene, correspondent Jay Barbree, and correspondent Merrill Mueller. (Barbree Collection).

Again, Merrill Mueller and I were at the NBC microphones, and when possible, we carried the voices from the blockhouse and Mercury Control live on our worldwide networks.

It was perfect radio. Launch-team members’ voices were in pure harmony.

“Status check,” O’Malley barked into his lip mike, his words carried to the headset of every member of his team. He had to know if all the Atlas-Mercury systems were ready.

“Pressurization?” his sharp clear voice demanded.

“Go.”

“Lox tanking?” O’Malley needed to know if the liquid oxygen tank was filled, if there was enough to oxidize the fuel to get Glenn in orbit.

“I have a blinking high-level light.”

O’Malley also knew the signal was false. “You are go,” O’Malley snapped.

“Range operations?”

“Go for launch.” All tracking stations were in the green.

“Mercury capsule?”

“Go.”

“All pre-start panels are correct,” O’Malley acknowledged. “The ready light is on. Eject Mercury umbilical.”

“Mercury umbilical clear.”