The Eagle Has Landed: The Story of Apollo 11 (6 page)

In order to fulfill their roles as media darlings, the former test pilots were schooled on social graces, appropriate attire, posture, and speech-making. Michael Collins, who would be selected in a subsequent astronaut class, likened the training to
charm school.

Wherever the intrepid, clean-cut astronauts traveled, they were greeted as America’s best and brightest. Wernher von Braun, who was supervising the design of the rockets that would send the astronauts into space, was impressed by the
Mercury 7:
“They are the most wonderful bunch of people you’ve ever seen. No daredevils by a long shot, but serious, sober, dedicated, and balanced individuals…”

During the Space Race, image often trumped reality. Separated from their wives and children during exhaustive training sessions at Cape Canaveral, and lured by the temptations of nearby Cocoa Beach, a number of the
Mercury
astronauts behaved in a manner inconsistent with their straight-laced media images. The astronauts’ drinking, womanizing, and high speed races in their sports cars were conveniently excluded from the contemporary annals of space exploration. John Glenn, whose squeaky clean persona excluded him from the shenanigans in Florida, confronted his fellow astronauts about the rumors of their misbehavior. Believing the line between duty and play was clearly demarcated, Allen Shepard told Glenn, in no uncertain terms, to butt out of the private lives of his compatriots.

While the United States was initiating
Project Mercury,
the Soviet Union was busy establishing its own manned space program. In March of 1960, cosmonaut training began at the Star Town Facility, located a short distance from Moscow. The cosmonaut candidates were selected from the active roster of military pilots. To maintain ethnic purity, all of the prospective cosmonauts had to be full-blooded Russians. In totalitarian fashion, each cosmonaut was expected to demonstrate absolute loyalty to his country and never question the decisions of his superiors, even during flight.

From an initial pool of 20 pilots, a dozen cosmonauts were chosen, and became known as the
Star Town 12.
The inaugural class included Yuri Gagarin, Victor Gorbatko, German Titov, Georgi Situviv, Andrian Nikolayev, Yeugeni Khrunov, Pavel Popovich, Boris Volyanov, Valeri Bykovksy, Aleksei Leonov, Vladimir Kumarov, and Pavel Balyayev.

The first manned Soviet spacecraft was named
Volstok
(Russian for “upward flowing”). Designed by engineer Oleg G. Ivanovsky, the spherical capsule was attached to a conical-shaped equipment module, which contained telemetry and communication equipment, oxygen and nitrogen tanks, antennae, and retrorockets. When the spacecraft returned home, the equipment module would be jettisoned before the spacecraft re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, and the capsule would parachute to a ground landing. For safety reasons, during the earliest space flights, the cosmonauts were ordered to parachute from the capsule before it impacted the ground. With deliberate bravado, Soviet authorities disingenuously reported that each cosmonaut remained with his ship until it landed.

Early on, America’s first astronauts were exposed to one of many potential catastrophes associated with space flight. On May 18, 1959, the
Mercury 7
witnessed a test of the
Atlas
rocket that would launch them into space. One minute after liftoff, the giant rocked exploded in the Cape Canaveral skies. John Glenn likened the blast to a “hydrogen bomb going off right over our heads.” After a brief period of stunned silence, Alan Shepard eased the tension with his morbid sense of humor: “Well, I’m glad they got that out of the way.”

The second unmanned
Mercury
mission, launched on November 21, 1960, also ended in failure, when the
Redstone
rocket lifted only a few inches off the launch pad, and then fell against the supporting tower. As the rocket teetered precariously, the capsule parachutes popped out like a party favor—an embarrassing decoration for what became widely known as the “four-inch flight.”

On December 19
^th
of that same year, NASA was finally able to launch an unmanned
MR-1
capsule into space. After reaching an altitude of 131 miles, the spacecraft safely returned to Earth, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.

In preparation for manned space flight, NASA experimented with animals. The first passengers were pigs, who were strapped inside
Mercury
capsules and dropped from high altitudes to test the spacecraft’s impact resistance. The porkers emerged from the exercise with only mild injuries, which humorously validated the claims of many veteran test pilots—astronauts really were just “Spam in a Can.”

On May 29, 1959, NASA launched an Army
Jupiter
missile transporting
Able,
a rhesus monkey, and
Baker,
a South American squirrel monkey, into space. Both monkeys wore electrodes to measure their physiological responses to weightlessness and G-forces during the 300-mile-high flight. After splash down, the rocket’s passenger compartment was recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, where both passengers were found tucked away, safe and sound.

The next space explorers were chimpanzees, who were selected because their reaction times were nearly identical to those of human beings. A group of 40 chimps housed at New Mexico’s Holloman Aerospace Medical Center were trained for space flight. On January 21, 1961, six of the
astrochimps,
along with 20 handlers and medical specialists, travelled from New Mexico to Cape Canaveral, in preparation for the first test launches. The now impatient
Mercury
astronauts questioned the need for further test flights; a disgusted Alan Shepard expressed hope that the next launch would result in a “chimp barbecue.”

On January 31, 1961, ape number 61, nicknamed
Ham,
an acronym for Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, was launched into space. Strapped in a cockpit seat within a plastic pressure chamber the size of a trunk (designed to simulate conditions inside a spacesuit), Ham endured the 16-minute, 39-second flight, sustaining only a minor injury—a bruised nose that occurred during lift-off or splash down.

Ham’s flight was not without misadventure. When the spacecraft’s retrorockets were jettisoned too early, increasing re-entry speed to 1,400 miles per hour, the capsule splashed down 130 miles beyond the target zone. At impact, two holes were punched in the capsule, causing it to take on 800 pounds of seawater. It took nearly two hours for Navy helicopters to locate the listing capsule; by then, Ham was in a rage, snarling and biting at his rescuers. During the post-flight press conference, the camera flash bulbs further angered the chimp, who viciously bared his fangs to the world.

While monkeys were actually flying in space, the
Mercury 7
proceeded with training exercises. The astronauts were taken for flights aboard F-100 jets, executing Mach 1.4 dives, and C-130 transport planes, flying parabolas; both exercises exposed them to periods of weightlessness.

Using flight simulators, the astronauts familiarized themselves with the newly designed space capsule. In January of 1959,
McDonnell Aircraft Corporation
had been awarded the contract to build 20
Mercury
capsules. More than 4,000 suppliers ultimately contributed parts or materials for the spacecraft’s construction.

Only six-feet, ten-inches-long and six-feet, two-inches-wide (at its greatest diameter), the 4,300-pound capsule’s interior was cramped. Engineers and flight technicians, however, were not particularly concerned about the astronauts’ comfort, viewing pilots as superfluous additions to the space flights. The spacecraft’s propulsion, altitude, guidance, and re-entry systems were designed to be controlled exclusively by ground-based technicians. The astronauts bristled at the diminished role of the pilot, as Deke Slayton angrily acknowledged:
“Mercury
was designed to operate unmanned.” At one point, consideration was given to drugging the astronauts just prior to launch, rendering them immune to space sickness and G-force pain, and also preventing them from pushing buttons and flipping cockpit switches.

“All we need to louse things up is a skilled space pilot with his hands itching for the controls,” a Bell Lab engineer groused.

In the end, NASA needed heroes as much as it needed spacecraft, if for nothing more than propaganda purposes. Dissatisfied with their roles as passive capsule occupants, the
Mercury 7
successfully lobbied to modify the spacecraft, including installation of a back-up manual navigation system, a cockpit window, and an escape hatch with explosive bolts. The latter feature was deemed a necessity, as the astronauts did not want to be dependent on others to get them out of the capsule, in the event of an emergency.

Before a manned
Mercury
spacecraft ever took flight, the Soviet Union scored another first. On April 12, 1961, Cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin became the first person to orbit the Earth. A former fighter pilot, the 27-year-old Gagarin completed a single orbit, lasting 1- hour and 48-minutes, aboard the
Vostok 1
spacecraft. While in orbit, the Soviet cosmonaut ate, drank, and wrote on a note pad, proving that digestive, metabolic, and neurological functions were not seriously impaired by weightlessness.

After returning to Earth, Gagarin earned effusive praise from Nikita Khrushchev: “You have made yourself immortal.” Adding fuel to the propaganda fire, Gagarin boasted: “Let the Capitalist countries catch up to our country.”

The Soviet newspaper and Communist mouthpiece
Pravda
boasted that Gagarin’s space flight was a “great event in the history of humanity.” At the same time, the
Washington Post
echoed the angst of many Americans: “The fact of the Soviet space feat must be faced for what it is, and it is a psychological victory of the first magnitude for the Soviet Union.” Over the next 26 months, the Soviets successfully launched five more manned space flights, convincing many that America was hopelessly mired in second place in the Space Race.

After the retrorocket malfunction during the chimp Ham’s flight, Wernher von Braun insisted on another unmanned test flight, much to the chagrin of the
Mercury
astronauts. The flight proved successful, with the spacecraft following the correct trajectory and landing 307 miles down range in the Atlantic Ocean. Ever cautious, NASA officials had originally planned to send more chimps into space, but after the Soviets launched Yuri Gagarin into orbit, the United States was pressured into launching its own manned spacecraft.

On May 5, 1961, Alan B. Shepard, Jr. became the first American to travel into space. On the morning of the historic launch, Shepard breakfasted on filet mignon, scrambled eggs, and orange juice, before donning cotton underwear and his spacesuit. The latter, manufactured by
B. F. Goodrich
in Akron, Ohio, was made of plastic and aluminized nylon; a modified version of the Navy
Mark IV
pressurized suit. Inside the space suit, Shepard’s core temperature was carefully regulated and his body odor was drawn away through an activated charcoal filter. Life-sustaining oxygen entered the protective garment at the thorax and exited through the helmet. To complete his launch attire, Shepard wore custom-designed gloves, boots, and a helmet—the entire 22-pound outfit cost $5,000.00.

High above the launch pad, aided by back-up pilot John Glenn, Shepard squeezed inside the 4,300-pound space capsule, christened
Freedom 7;
each
Mercury
spacecraft would bear the same number, in honor of America’s first seven astronauts. Intermittently obscured by cloud cover, a half-Moon overlooked Cape Canaveral, as Shepard sat atop the
Redstone
rocket, an upgraded version of the famed
V-2,
which was capable of generating 367,000 pounds of thrust. Twin movie cameras were mounted inside the capsule—one to monitor the instrument panel and the other to record Shepard’s physiological and emotional responses during the space flight.

Fellow astronaut, Deke Slayton, stationed at the launch control center, was designated as the capsule communicator (Cap Com)—the individual who would maintain a direct radio link with Shepard during his flight. Just prior to lift-off, Slayton was joined at launch control by John Glenn and Gus Grissom. In an adjacent building, Gordon Cooper monitored weather conditions, and was on stand-by to coordinate rescue efforts, in the event of an emergency. Wally Schirra and Scott Carpenter waited at nearby Patrick Air Force Base; they were strapped in the cockpit seats of
F-106
jets, poised to chase the spacecraft after launch.

Another man, whose name would eventually become synonymous with space exploration, was on hand at Cape Canaveral to witness Shepard’s historic launch. Television news was still in its technological infancy, and
CBS News
anchorman, Walter Cronkite, was forced to narrate the telecast from the back of a station wagon, which was parked within sight of the launch pad.

The 44-year-old Cronkite was an unabashed space enthusiast. NASA capitalized on media exposure to bolster its space program, and Cronkite became one of the agency’s most-valued spokespersons. Designated as a space agency insider, the newsman was privy to specific details about space missions, and established close personal relationships with many of the astronauts.

Cronkite’s growing fame during the 1960’s paralleled the trajectory of the American space program. By the end of his storied career, Cronkite would be known as “America’s anchorman,” and the “most trusted man in America.” Some media pundits, however, criticized Cronkite’s enthusiastic support for space exploration, believing that he was compromising his journalistic objectivity to become a “cheerleader” for NASA.

Cronkite’s enthusiasm was readily evident during
CBS
broadcasts, and he made no effort to apologize for his often giddy commentary. Cronkite readily acknowledged complicity in the glorification of the
Mercury 7
astronauts: “We were quite aware that the image that NASA was trying to project was not quite honest. But, at the same time, there was recognition that the nation needed heroes.”