Richard Lawrence - The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disaster

Just as this turnaround began, a brilliant shaft of light came flashing through the window. This was the sun. I knew it was coming, but when it started moving across my torso, from my lower left, I was afraid for a moment that it might shine directly into my eyes and blind me. Everything else in the cockpit was completely black except for this narrow shaft of light. But it moved on across my body and disappeared as the capsule finished its turnaround.

I did have some trouble with the attitude controls. They seemed sticky and sluggish to me, and the capsule did not always respond as well as I thought it should. This meant that it took longer for me to work the controls than I had planned, and when my time for testing them was up I was slightly behind schedule. I wanted to fire the retros manually and at the same time use the manual controls to stay in the proper attitude. This was not critical on my flight since I was on a ballistic path and we were just exercising the retrorockets for practice. But it did indicate that we still had a few improvements to make with the controls. Actually, even if I had been in orbit, I could have handled the situation. It was not serious. It just wasn’t perfect. This was the main reason I was up there, of course – to find the bugs in the system before we went all the way.

I was looking out of the window when I fired the retros manually, right on schedule. I could see by checking the view that a definite yaw to the right was starting up. I had planned to use the view and the horizon as a reference to hold the capsule in its proper attitude when they fired. But when I saw this yawing motion start up, I quickly switched back to instruments. You have to stay right on top of your controls when the retros fire, because they can give you a good kick in the pants and you cannot predict in which direction they may start shoving you. Here was where some extra training on the ALFA would have come in handy. It would have given me more confidence in the window as a visual reference for the controls, and I would not have felt it so necessary to go right back to the instruments that I knew best.

It was a strange sensation when the retros fired. Just before they went, I had the distinct feeling that I was moving backwards – which I was. But when they went off and slowed me down, I definitely felt that I was going the other way. It was an illusion, of course. I had only changed speed, not direction.

Despite my problems with the controls, I was able to hold the spacecraft steady during the twenty-two seconds that it took for the three retros to finish their job.

The re-entry itself, which I knew could be a tricky period, was uneventful. But it did produce some interesting sensations. Once I saw what looked like smoke or a contrail bouncing off the heatshield as it buffeted its way through the atmosphere. I am sure that what I saw were shock waves. We were really bouncing along at this point. I was pulling quite a few Gs – they built up to 11.2. But they were no sweat. I had taken as many as 16on the centrifuge, and this seemed easy by comparison. I could also hear a curious roar inside the capsule during this period. This was probably the noise of the blunt nose pushing its way through the atmosphere.

Both the drogue chute and the main chute broke out right on schedule. There was a slight bouncing around when the big one dug into the air, but this was no problem. The capsule started to rotate and swing slowly under the chute as it descended. I could feel a slight jar as the landing bag dropped down to take up some of the landing shock.

I hit the water with a good bump at T+15 minutes 37 seconds.

I felt that I was in very good shape. I had opened up the faceplate on my helmet, disconnected the oxygen hose from the helmet, unfastened the helmet from the suit, released the chest strap, the lap belt, the shoulder harness, knee straps and medical sensors. And I rolled up the neck dam of my suit, a sort of turtle-neck diaphragm made out of rubber to keep the air inside our suit and the water out in case we get dunked during the recovery. This was the best thing I did all day.

This procedure left me connected to the capsule at only two points: the oxygen inlet hose which I still needed for cooling, and the communications wires which led into the helmet. Now I turned my attention to the hatch. I released the restraining wires at both ends and tossed them to my feet. Then I removed the cap from the detonator which would blow the hatch, and pulled out the safety pin. The detonator was now armed. But I did not touch it. I would wait to do that until the last minute, when the helicopter pilot told me he was hooked on and ready for me to come out.

I was in radio contact with “Hunt Club”, the code name for the helicopters which were on their way to pick me up. The pilots seemed ready to go to work, but I asked them to stand by for three or four minutes while I made a check of all the switch positions on the instrument panel. I had been asked to do this, for we had discovered on Al’s flight that some of the readings got jiggled loose while the capsule was being carried back to the carrier. I wanted to plot them accurately before we moved the capsule another foot. As soon as I had finished looking things over, I told Hunt Club that I was ready. According to the plan, the pilot was to inform me as soon as he had lifted me up a bit so that the capsule would not ship water when the hatch blew. Then I would remove my helmet, blow the hatch, and get out.

I had unhooked the oxygen inlet hose by now and was lying flat on my back and minding my own business when suddenly the hatch blew off with a dull thud. All I could see was blue sky and sea water rushing in over the sill. I made just two moves, both of them instinctive. I tossed off my helmet, grabbed the right edge of the instrument panel and hoisted myself right through the hatch. I have never moved faster in my life. The next thing I knew I was floating high in my suit with the water up to my armpits.

Things got a little messy for the few minutes that I was in the water. First I got entangled in the line which attaches the dye marker package to the capsule. I was afraid for a second that I would be dragged down by the line if the capsule sank. But I freed myself and figured I was still safe. I looked up then and for the first time I saw the helicopter that was moving in over the capsule. The spacecraft seemed to be sinking fast, and the pilot had all three wheels down in the water near the neck of it while the co-pilot stood in the door trying desperately to hook on. I swam over a few feet to try and help, but before I could do anything he snagged it. The top of the capsule went clear under water then. But the chopper pulled up and away and the capsule started rising gracefully out of the water.

I expected the same helicopter crew to drop a horse collar near me now and scoop me up. That was our plan. Instead, they pulled away and left me there. I found out later that the pilot had a red warning light on his instrument panel, telling him that he was about to burn out an engine trying to bolt on to the capsule. Normally, he could have made it. But the capsule full of sea water was too heavy for him, and he had to cut it loose and let it sink. I tried to signal to him by waving my arms. Then I tried to swim over to him. But by now there were three other choppers all hovering around trying to get close to me, and their rotor blades kicked up so much spray that it was hard to move.

The second helicopter in line was right in front of me, and I could see two guys standing in the door with what looked like chest packs strapped around them. A third guy was taking pictures of me through a window. At this point the waves were leaping over my head, and I noticed for the first time that I was floating lower and lower in the water. I had to swim hard just to keep my head up. It dawned on me that in the rush to get out before I sank I had not closed the air inlet port in the belly of my suit, where the oxygen tube fits inside the capsule. Although this hole was probably not letting much water in, it was letting air seep out, and I needed that air to help me stay afloat. I thought to myself, “Well, you’ve gone through the whole flight, and now you’re going to sink right here in front of all these people.”