Richard Lawrence - The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disaster

Glenn described Shepard’s reaction:

Al’s reaction was exuberance and satisfaction. He talked about his five minutes of weightlessness as painless and pleasant. He’d had no unusual sensations, was elated at being able to control the capsule’s attitude, and was only sorry the flight hadn’t lasted longer.

Al’s flight was greeted as a triumph around the world because it had been visible. The world had learned of Gagarin’s flight from Nikita Khrushchev. It had learned of Al’s by watching it on live television and listening to it on the radio. That openness was as significant a triumph in the Cold War battle of ideologies as Gagarin’s flight had been scientifically.

Kennedy used the momentum of Al’s flight boldly. Now that men on both sides of the Iron Curtain had entered space one way or another, the president leapfrogged to the next great step. He went to Congress on May 25 and in a memorable speech urged it to plunge into the space race with both feet. He said, “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

The second US manned space flight happened on 21 July 1961. Although Glenn had been the back-up for Shephard, Gus Grissom was chosen for the second manned space flight. Glenn:

Gus’s flight was set for July 19, the day after my fortieth birthday He would have a view Al didn’t have. Al had ridden the Mercury capsule as originally designed, with a porthole and no window. We had discussed other changes with Max Faget and the engineers at McDonnell. Deke wanted foot pedals to make the capsule’s controls more like a plane’s. I had wanted to replace the gauges with tape-line instrumentation that would provide information at a glance. Both systems would have added too much weight. But Gus’s Liberty Bell 7, as he had named his capsule, had a window.

One problem nobody had figured out the answer to, however, was the one that had plagued Al.

The night before Gus’s flight, I was staying with him in crew quarters as his backup. There was a little medical lab next door. We went in and set to work trying to design a urine collection device. We got some condoms in the lab, and we clipped the receptacle ends off and cemented some rubber tubing that ran to a plastic bag to be taped to his leg.

It seemed to work well enough, and Gus put it on in the morning before he suited up.

Grissom’s flight was postponed because of bad weather. On 19 July the weather was still unsuitable so there was a 48-hour postponement. Grissom:

I was disappointed, however, after spending four hours in the couch. And I did not look forward to spending another forty-eight hours on the Cape. It would take that long to purge the Redstone of all its corrosive fuels, dry it out and start all over again. But I felt sure we would get it off on the next time around. And we did. The build-up was normal. I got up at 1:10 a.m. and was in the spacecraft at 3:58. I was to lie there for 3 hours 22 minutes before we finally lifted off.

We had a few problems with the countdown. One of the explosive bolts that held the hatch in place was misaligned, and at T-45 minutes they declared a hold to replace it. This took thirty minutes. Then the count was resumed and proceeded to T-30 minutes where it was stopped so the technicians could turn off the pad searchlights. It was daylight by this time, anyway, and the lights were causing some interference with the booster telemetry. There was another hold at T-15 minutes to let some clouds drift out of the way of the tracking cameras. This one lasted forty-one minutes. I spent some of this time relaxing with deep breathing exercises and tensing my arms and legs to keep from getting too stiff. We finally got to the final act and I heard Deke Slayton count down to 5-4-3-2-1.

I felt the booster start to vibrate and I could hear the engines start. Seconds later, the elapsed time clock started on the instrument panel. I punched the Time Zero Override to make sure that everything was synchronized, started the stopwatch on the clock and reported over the radio that the clock had started. I could feel a low vibration at about T+50 seconds, but it lasted only about twenty seconds. There was nothing violent about it. It was nice and easy, just as Al had predicted. I looked for a little buffeting as I climbed to 36,000 feet and moved through Mach 1, the speed of sound. Al had experienced some difficulty here; his vehicle shook quite a lot and his vision was slightly blurred by the vibrations. But we had made some good fixes. We had improved the aerodynamic fairings between the capsule and the Redstone, and had put some extra padding around my head. I had no trouble at all, and I could see the instruments very clearly.

I did experience a slight tumbling sensation when the Redstone engine shut off at T+142 seconds and when the escape tower went ten seconds later. There was a definite feeling of disorientation. But I knew what it was, and it did not bother me. I could hear the escape rocket fire and the bolts blow that held the tower to the capsule. And I could see the escape rocket zooming off to my right. I saw the tower climb away, and it still showed up as a long slender object against the black sky when I heard the posigrade rockets that separated the capsule from the Redstone fire off. I could hear them bang and could definitely feel them kick. I never did see the booster, though. Neither had Al.

Now, I was on my own. Shortly after lift-off I went through a layer of cirrus clouds and broke out into the sun. The sky became blue, then a deeper blue, and then – quite suddenly and abruptly – it turned black. Al had described it as dark blue. It seemed jet black to me. There was a narrow transition band between the blue and the black – a sort of fuzzy grey area. But it was very thin, and the change from blue to black was extremely vivid. The earth itself was bright. I had a little trouble identifying land masses because of an extensive layer of clouds that hung over them. Even so, the view back down through the window was fascinating. I could make out brilliant gradations of colour – the blue of the water, the white of the beaches, and the brown of the land. Later on, when I was weightless and about a hundred miles up – almost at the apogee of the flight – I could look down and see Cape Canaveral, sharp and clear. I could even see the buildings. This was the best reference I had for determining my position. I could pick out the Banana River and see the peninsula which runs farther south. Then I spotted the south coast of Florida. I saw what must have been West Palm Beach. I never did see Cuba. The high cirrus blotted out everything except the area from about Daytona Beach back inland to Orlando and Lakeland, to Lake Okeechobee and down to the tip of Florida. It was quite a panorama.

At one point, through the centre of the window, I saw a faint star. At least I thought it was a star, and I reported that it was. It seemed about as bright as Polaris. John Glenn had bet me a steak dinner that I would see stars in the daytime, and I had bet him I would not. I knew that without atmospheric particles in space to defract the light, we should be able to see stars, at least theoretically. But I did not think I would be able to accommodate my eyes to the darkness fast enough to spot them. As it turned out, John lost his bet. It was Venus that I saw, and Venus is a planet. John had to pay me off, after all.

The flight itself went almost exactly according to plan. I had a really weird sensation when the capsule turned around to assume retro-fire attitude. I thought at first that I might be tumbling out of control. But I did not feel in the least bit nauseous. When I checked the instruments, I could see that everything was normal and that the manoeuvre was taking place just as I had experienced it on the trainer.