Category Freedom 7

As the day of the space shot drew nearer, Koons and Cox had to confer with media people on the USS Lake Champlain in order to coordinate the best possible coverage of the retrieval of Alan Shepard and his spacecraft.

One person who impressed Koons was National Geographic photographer Dean Conger. “He was part of the pool. He had been out with us on one prior mission, I think. Dean showed up with a camera that he asked to clamp onto the side of the helicopter, where it would be looking down as we did the retrieval. It had a wide – angle lens. I can’t remember how many exposures he said it had. It must have been just a standard thirty-six-exposure roll. But he said it was automatic, and he could set it up to take just one shot per second … it was actually on one of the little struts that held the [personnel] hoist. And the other thing, if we could just remember to turn it on when we started doing the pickup.” [8]

As Dean Conger recalled for the author, “Logically I wanted to be on the prime pickup chopper, but that was ruled out for weight reasons. They flew with only the pilot and copilot. When it came time to pick up the astronaut the copilot would leave the cockpit and go to the doorway to operate the winch.

“On another ship for an earlier flight [MR-2 with Ham] I talked with the Marine crew chief – unfortunately, I don’t remember his name – who was extremely helpful with my idea of placing a remote camera somewhere. He said that he could make a bracket. He welded together a bracket out of 2-inch strap iron which had a pocket to accept a Nikon fitted with a 250-exposure back, and we would run a cord down to a battery pack which was fastened to the side of the cabin door. I believe it was taped there. The Nikon battery pack only had a push button. The chief made a slip-on clip that the copilot would push in order to hold the button down for continuous shooting. It was all very crude, but it worked.

“The flight plan was as follows: When the capsule landed, a long antenna would deploy straight up. So the first maneuver was to fly in and the copilot, having left the cockpit, would snip off the antenna using an explosive bolt cutter on a long pole so that it wouldn’t interfere with the rotor blades. Then the chopper would circle back, stabilize the capsule, and lift the astronaut up. In testing, this had checked out to take about 10 minutes. In their flight plan, the copilot would push the camera switch as they approached to cut the antenna. The problem for me was that the film would run out in about 2.5 minutes. A technician on the ship said he would wire a resistor into the cord to slow down the camera. After the fact, Nikon said it ought not to have worked at all!” [9]

It was something of a gamble, but Dean Conger was an experienced, professional photographer determined that this particular day in history should be recorded for posterity with only the very best images.

In 1986, Shepard reflected back on that auspicious day. “After the ceremony in the Rose Garden, the president invited the astronauts into the Oval Office to talk about the future of the space program. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson had great political instincts. They knew the country needed a lift, and they saw space flight as a rallying point. We talked at great length about it. The president said he knew I had a parade up Pennsylvania Avenue, but first he wanted me to go with him to a meeting of the National Association of Broadcasters. He just grabbed me, and we got in his car and drove to the meeting. ‘I want you to say a few words to these guys,’ Kennedy said. I forget what I said; it was something like it was nice to be back. Everybody jumped to their feet and cheered. I couldn’t believe the reception there.” [15]

According to the 1994 book, Moon Shot, based on interviews with the astronaut, “Shepard did not like what was happening. His patience was evaporating swiftly. He disliked, intensely, being used. Walking in on the broadcasters’ convention with the president would be showing off a war trophy named Shepard, and it smelled. He mol­lified himself somewhat by remembering that no matter who he was, Kennedy was also his commander in chief, and you can excuse almost anything if you’re obeying orders. The fact that he and Louise received a standing ovation did diminish his objec­tions to some degree.” [16]

Further cheers went up as Alan and Louise Shepard, with Vice President Johnson between them, climbed into a limousine which then left the White House for a slow ride along the traditional parade route of American heroes, from the White House out onto Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues to the Capitol, where he was to receive a reception by Congress.

A massive, cheering crowd estimated at around a quarter of a million people lined the sidewalks. There were no military bands playing, no troops, and no spectacular displays of the nation’s might. Government officials had earlier decided that it would be inappropriate to give their official blessing to a star-spangled military parade and organized welcome, so the citizens of Washington took matters into their own hands and by their tumultuous welcome gave the nation’s first spacemen and his fellows in the following limousines a cacophony of unrehearsed affection that made the day’s proceedings all the more memorable.

“I’ll never forget riding to the Capitol in an open convertible with Johnson and Louise,” Shepard later pointed out. “Johnson kept saying, ‘Look at all these people… Shepard, you and Louise get up on top of this thing.’ So we sat up on the back. When we got to the Capitol, Johnson said, ‘Well, Shepard, now that you’re a famous man, let me give you some advice. Never pass up an opportunity for a free lunch or a chance to go to the men’s room.’” [17]

On arrival at the east portico of the Capitol, Shepard alighted along with the other astronauts in front of a massive crowd. All seven would have been stunned by the thousands of excited people who had gathered in the plaza hoping to catch a glimpse of them but held back by police lines and ropes. Led by Vice President Johnson, the party ascended the broad steps of the Capitol to meet House Speaker Sam Rayburn, House Majority Leader John McCormack, and other dignitaries. Shepard expressed his sincere appreciation for the warm welcome by the lawmakers, and indicated he would have far more to say at his later press conference. He seemed quite composed in front of the noisy, jostling crowd, speaking seldom, smiling often, and watching the scene before him with amazement.

After waving at the crowds and saying a few words, Shepard moved on to the more formal part of the occasion, which was held in the old Supreme Court chamber, just a few steps down from the Senate. Then it was off to the State Department for his press conference, chaired and introduced by NASA Administrator James Webb. As Shepard entered the auditorium, 500 news reporters rose and gave him a standing ovation, something reporters seldom do. With his six fellow astronauts flanking him on his right and James Webb, Robert Gilruth and other NASA officials on his left he gave an account of the flight “we made” the previous Friday. He acknowledged the acclaim, but refused to accept it all for himself.

To the President, to the Congress, and to the reporters, Shepard stressed over and over that it was not “he” but “we” who did the thing that they were praising him for. “I am acutely aware,” he said, “of the hundreds of individuals who made this flight possible.” But as Robert Gilruth, director of the Mercury program pointed out at the conference, it was Alan Shepard “who really broke the ice for all of us” and showed America the way into the great new frontier of space [18].

That night, after the glare of the public spotlight, Shepard and his wife and family spent a quiet evening together in the seclusion of Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, talking over recent events.

Even as the nation celebrated the successful first American space flight by Alan Shepard, most of the attention at NASA had turned to the future and was focused on the second Mercury flight and those which would follow it. Soon 40-year-old Virgil Grissom, better known as Gus, would step up to the plate to deliver the all-important second suborbital test in the spacecraft he had patriotically named Liberty Bell 7.

Three days prior to the launch of MR-2, newspaper reports across the United States were abuzz with a mounting air of excitement and expectation, as the flight of the chimpanzee was rightly being viewed as a prelude to the first flight of a human into space. An Associated Press report on Friday, 28 January 1961, described the build-up to the mission at Cape Canaveral, stressing that good visibility at the launch site and crucial points down the Atlantic test range was an essential requirement for the liftoff to proceed:

In another 24 hours, if there are no delays, scientists will take a final look at six chimpanzees in their quarters here and pick one for the honor of being the nation’s first animal astronaut to check out a Mercury spacecraft like those human astronauts will ride in later launchings. Then, six hours before launch time, the chimp will be packed into its own special space couch in a pressure chamber inside the nine – foot-high Mercury capsule.

If the shot goes, this chimp – a mild-looking member of a specially trained team of four females and two males – will discover for science in a space of 16 minutes whether an animal, much like man in many ways, can tolerate the fantastic stresses of rocket flight under conditions of weightlessness in airless space.

The launching vehicle will be a special Redstone missile which will hurl the chimp 115 miles up and 290 miles downrange at a speed hitting a peak of 4,000 miles an hour.

If chimp and spacecraft make the flight okay, a human astronaut will try it in the next three months. Then, if a host of other trials go well, another chimp will be fired into orbit, and another astronaut will follow his trail, late this year or early next [7].

At 8:00 p. m. (EST) on Monday night, James Henry and John Mosely were on hand to select the prime and backup candidates. According to Ed Dittmer, “We didn’t know which chimp would be going until the day before launch. There were six of them that were selected and they were all good, but Ham easily stood out as the best of the bunch.” [8] Henry and Mosely agreed with Dittmer’s judgment, selecting Ham because of his solid work under test conditions, as well as his general good nature, physical well-being, and alertness at the time. He was also declared to be the best prepared of the six finalists, having amassed 219 hours of training over a 15-month period, including being subjected to simulated Redstone launch profiles on the centrifuge at the Air Force Aerospace Medical Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio. The preferred backup chimpanzee, one of the four females, was Subject 46, known to her handlers as Minnie. She would be prepared to replace Ham at short notice should he develop any late abnormalities.

At 11:55 on the morning of 31 January 1961, chimpanzee Ham was launched on the suborbital MR-2 flight. The Redstone climbed steeply and then headed downrange over the Atlantic Missile Range to where a fleet of Navy vessels was stationed in the target zone some 290 miles from the Cape. Due to the spacecraft overshooting its intended splashdown area and Ham experiencing a rough reentry that exposed him to a hefty load of 18 g’s, there were fears that the chimpanzee might not have survived. However, after the capsule was recovered, the attending veterinarian, Maj. Richard Benson, pronounced Ham to be “healthy and happy.”

While there was relief that Ham’s flight had ended well, Shepard was unshakable in his belief that a human astronaut should have occupied that capsule.

“I reviewed the telemetry tapes and records of the Great Chimp Adventure. I knew I could’ve survived that trip, but I also knew immediately that my own planned flight was in deep trouble. If only the damn chimp’s ride had been on the mark, I’d have launched in March.

“But Ham’s flight had not been on the mark, and in Huntsville, Alabama, Dr. Wernher von Braun, developer of the Redstone and director of the Marshall Space Flight Center, was showing signs of a new conservatism as responsibility for men’s lives was factored into his decisions. ‘We require another unmanned Mercury-Redstone flight,’ he said. Working with the engineers, I confirmed that the problem with Ham’s Redstone had been nothing more than a minor electrical relay. The fix was quick and easy, and the Redstone was back in perfect shape. ‘For God’s sake, let’s fly. Now!’ I begged NASA officials, but Dr. von Braun stood fast: ‘Another test flight.’ I stalked off

steaming to the office of Flight Director Chris Kraft. ‘Look, Chris, we’re pilots,’ I said. ‘When there’s a failure, dammit, we fix it.’

“‘I know, Alan,’ he said.

“‘Well, what about it? It’s an established fact that the relay was the problem, and it’s fixed.’

“‘Right.’

“‘So why don’t we go ahead? Why don’t we man the next one?’

“‘Why waste time, right?’ Kraft smiled.

“‘Right.’

‘“Because when it comes to rockets’ – the flight director shook his head – ‘Wernher is king.’

“‘King?’

“‘King.’

“‘Forget it, right?’

“‘Right.’

“So I walked away, brooding. The March 24 Redstone flight was an absolute beauty. I could’ve killed. I should’ve been on that flight. I could’ve led the world into space. I should’ve been floating up there, while the Russians were still wrestling with a balky rocket booster.”

By the time Shepard’s flight was ready to go, Yuri Gagarin had already been there and back.

“So that was that,” Shepard pointed out ruefully. “Nearly four years after Sputnik started the Space Race and two years after I and my six colleagues – Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil (‘Gus’) Grissom, Wally Schirra, and Deke Slayton – were presented in a Washington, D. C., ceremony as the Mercury Project team that would represent America in space, we’d been beaten to the punch. We had them by the short hairs, and we gave it away.” [34]

As Guenter Wendt reflected, “As we busied ourselves incorporating the latest changes into the spacecraft, Glenn, Grissom and Shepard stayed busy in the simula­tor in Hangar S. The three prime candidates for the first Mercury flight spent 50 to 60 hours a week working on procedures in the simulator. During that period, Shepard made about 120 simulated flights, some in the sim[ulator] and some in the altitude chamber. In spite of the fact that Gagarin had orbited the Earth, and our first flight would only be suborbital, our Mercury was much more sophisticated than their Vostok. Of course we didn’t know it at the time, but the lead we had in spacecraft systems was one that we would never relinquish.” [35]

At long last the 1MC on the USS Lake Champlain announced that Freedom 7 had been launched successfully, and the sailors were told that if they looked to the west in several minutes they should be able to witness the spacecraft’s return.

At about the nine-minute point in the flight, Capt. Weymouth called Pri-Fly, and Ed Killian’s personal involvement in the MR-3 mission started. Weymouth said the NASA people on board the ship had not been able to reach the astronaut by radio. As Killian recalled, “The capsule carried both UHF and VHF radio units, but the VHF did not seem to be working. It was suspected that reentry ionization had screwed up radio communications such that NASA was unable to contact Shepard, but there was a scary possibility that something had gone seriously wrong. The Captain asked the Air Boss to see if Pri-Fly could raise the capsule on their UHF radio. We hadn’t been informed as to the capsule’s call sign, since we weren’t expected to be involved in communicat­ing with Shepard, so we didn’t know that his call sign was ‘Freedom 7.’ The Air Boss called ‘Mercury’ several times on the VHF radio without success, and then asked me to try the AR-15. This UHF aircraft radio was not standard equipment for Pri-Fly; it had been added several months earlier as a backup to the VHS system routinely used to contact the aircraft under control of Pri-Fly. As senior controller on my shift, I gen­erally wore the mike and headset, and operated the AR-15. It was not connected to any loudspeaker in Pri-Fly, so those communications were more or less private. Having failed to reach Shepard on VHF, the Air Boss turned and told me to call Shepard.”

Killian then began his attempt to reach the spacecraft. “Mercury, Mercury, this is Nighthawk. Do you read? Over.” There was no response. He repeated the entire call several times without success, and then told Air Boss Howard Skidmore he’d had no luck. Told to keep trying, he repeated the call several times more. He could see the concern on Skidmore’s face, and when he glanced up at the bridge he could also see Capt. Weymouth looking down at him with an equally worried expression.

Seconds later, an urgent call came over the intercom. “Pri-Fly, this is the Captain. Have you been able to raise Mercury?” Replying in the negative, Skidmore motioned for Killian to keep trying. As he repeated the call, the AR-15 sputtered and crackled, then cleared up and an exuberant voice responded with, “Roger, Nighthawk, this is Mercury. Boy, what a f.. .ing ride! Ho-lee s…! Goddam, that was something!” It was Alan Shepard himself.

“His excited reply startled me,” Killian says, “and such language wasn’t common in the radio traffic monitored in Pri-Fly. I was a little embarrassed, but pretty sure no one else had heard his outburst.” Happily for newspaper editors the following day, Shepard repeated his excited catch-cry of “Boy, what a ride!” to Capt. Weymouth on arriving on the ship – minus the profanity – which became the headline tag on many a global newspaper that day.

As Killian continued, “Shepard’s voice was at a high pitch in his excitement and it was obvious that he was glad to have made contact with someone on Earth after his short, but explosive, sojourn into space. We all knew that several previous launch attempts had exploded on the pad or shortly thereafter; he must have felt exhilarated just to be alive. His excited and happy response told me all we had wanted to know. I turned to my right and looked up to Capt. Weymouth on the bridge, and with a big smile on my face I gave him the thumb-and-forefinger ‘OK’ sign. Alan Shepard, America’s first astronaut, was A-OK. I made contact with him again, confirming that we’d received his transmission. ‘Roger, ride, Mercury,’ I said, ‘Nighthawk has a visual on you now, four miles off our port bow. We are making for your location and the choppers are airborne for your recovery. Do you read? Over.’

“I could tell from the tone of his voice when he responded that he was relieved to know that we were so close by. He regained some composure and acknowledged my trans­mission, thanking me for the information. I was watching the capsule swinging gently below the parachute just a few points off our port bow as I spoke to Shepard on the AR-15. Finally, NASA’s VHF radio finally broke in and I dropped out of the communications loop.”

These days Ed Killian is still amused at the blue language used by Shepard after his fiery reentry, and coyly wonders whether it ought perhaps to have been reported cor­rectly. “It was truly memorable,” he notes, “but the language was not scripted and it was just not acceptable for public audiences. Later, the astronauts would become more adept with ‘politically correct’ language. For now, Shepard had been honest in his reaction to the historic, and patently dangerous, personal experience.”

Whereas nowadays nearly every word of an American space mission is generally broadcast live, back then NASA was far less inclined to allow members of the public to listen to uncensored recordings of the Mercury astronauts under stress or even in danger. Only those who were fully involved in the missions had a “need to know” insight into the actual spacecraft-to-ground transmissions. Every word between the astronauts and the ground was filtered through Lt. Col. John (‘Shorty’) Powers, the space agency’s Public Affairs Officer, who then released a sanitized version of what had been said to the public. Even post-flight films had an edited voice track of the astronaut involved in that mission, which became the “official” NASA version of the flight. It is therefore hardly surprising that Shepard’s excited expletives, normally quite unremarkable for test pilots, were censored and never made public.

From the outset, the Freedom 7 spacecraft was never intended to serve any practical purpose after its history-making flight, let alone fly into space again. Instead, it was gifted to the American people by NASA, to be preserved in a museum environment and openly exhibited for everyone to visit.

Sadly, the Soviet Union was not quite as kind to its flown manned spacecraft. In one instance the Vostok 2 capsule, flown by Gherman Titov in making history’s first day-long space flight, was converted and used as a training vessel for the upcoming Voskhod human space flight program. During a failed test for a new soft-landing para­chute system, the capsule struck the ground so hard that it was crushed beyond repair. There would appear to be no indication of what happened to the remains, but there are lingering fears that it may have been unceremoniously scrapped.

Unlike his pioneering spacecraft, Alan Shepard would eventually fly into space a second time. In 1971 he commanded the Apollo 14 mission, fulfilling his long-held dream of walking on the surface of the Moon.

More than five decades on, the smaller spacecraft and the man who flew in it have both entered the history books for what they accomplished on 5 May 1961.

THE SPACECRAFT

Following its return by helicopter to Cape Canaveral, the Freedom 7 spacecraft was subjected to several days of minute examination by engineers and technicians. It was then released for a pre-scheduled tour abroad, ahead of being placed on permanent display in the United States. On 25 May, just three weeks after it had been recovered from the Atlantic, Freedom 7 went on display at the 24th International Aeronautical Show in Paris, France. By the end of the show on 4 June, some 650,000 fascinated attendees had taken the opportunity to view the spacecraft up close.

C. Burgess, Freedom 7: The Historic Flight of Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Springer Praxis Books, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-01156-1_8, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014

From Paris Freedom 7 was shipped to Italy, where it was on display from 13-25 June at the Rassegna International Electronic and Nuclear Fair in Rome. Amazingly, it drew more visitors than in Paris, with around 750,000 people lining up to inspect it. The spacecraft was then returned to the United States to undergo intensive study at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. After that it was returned to its maker, the McDonnell Aircraft Company in St. Louis, Missouri, to be taken apart, inspected, reconstructed, and prepared for public exhibition in the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C.

Four months later, on 23 October 1961, Freedom 7 was officially presented to the Smithsonian by NASA Administrator James Webb. In his presentation speech, Webb declared, “To Americans seeking answers, proof that man can survive in the hostile realms of space is not enough. A solid and meaningful foundation for public support and the basis for our Apollo man-in-space effort is that U. S. astronauts are going into space to do useful work in the cause of all their fellow men.” [1] Freedom 7 was placed on public display in the Quonset Hut – or Air Museum Building – in the South Yard Restrictions of the National Air and Space Museum.

East met West in May 1962 when Vostok 2 cosmonaut Gherman Titov paid an offi­cial visit to the United States. Accompanied by Mercury astronaut John Glenn, who had by then accomplished America’s first manned orbital flight, and a veritable caval­cade of official vehicles and press photographers, Titov was shown some of the sights around the nation’s capital, one highlight being a brief visit to the National Air and Space Museum where the cosmonaut inspected the Freedom 7 spacecraft.

In 1965, due to keen interest abroad and through the courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution, the Freedom 7 spacecraft was temporarily loaned to the Science Museum in Kensington, London, for a five-month exhibition. It was shipped from New York to London on the Cunard-Anchor liner Sidonia and delivered amid great fanfare on 17 September. The exhibition (which was advertised as lasting from 5 October 1965 to 28 February 1966) proved to be extremely popular. By the end of February it had been visited by 110,000 people. Among the visitors were Her Majesty the Queen and H. R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, who viewed Freedom 7 on 10 November [2].

Within the spacecraft was a lifelike model of Alan Shepard lying on his back as if preparing for liftoff, his left hand grasping the abort handle ready to fire the escape tower in the event of a mishap.

Due to great public interest, the Smithsonian agreed to an extension of the loan, allowing the exhibition to remain open until 1 May 1966. Eventually, the spacecraft was viewed by 356,000 visitors. On 18 May it was transferred to the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh, where it was exhibited for several weeks in conjunction with a public talk by John Glenn on 3 June. After the exhibit was closed on 11 September, the spacecraft remained in the museum out of public view for a further three weeks to accommodate a visiting Smithsonian dignitary. Overall, the Edinburgh exhibition was seen by in excess of 200,000 visitors, this number having been collected by the “elec­tric eye” of the museum [3].

Following its overseas sojourn, Freedom 7 was returned to the United States and placed back on public display at the Smithsonian, where it would remain for the next 32 years.

In December 1998 the spacecraft was out on lengthy loan once again, this time to the U. S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. The exhibition had been mounted

to honor the memory of pilot Alan Shepard, who died earlier that year. Shepard had graduated from the Academy in 1945. Freedom 7 would remain on public display at the Armel-Leftwich Visitor Center for 14 years, honored with a place in the rotunda leading to the exhibit area. During this time, it was encased in acrylic Plexiglas and had its periscope deployed.

On 18 January 2012 the Naval Academy announced that Freedom 7 would soon be moved from Maryland to Massachusetts and placed on temporary exhibition until December 2015 in a space gallery at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Columbus Point, Boston. The spacecraft’s public debut on 12 September 2012 was to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the “We choose to go to the Moon” speech that Kennedy famously delivered at Rice University in Houston in 1962.

Prior to the spacecraft taking up temporary residence in Boston, there was a major problem to resolve. This fell to experts at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, Kansas, which, in consultation with the Smithsonian, developed and

built a special cradle for exhibiting Freedom 7 in Boston. The cradle was constructed using steel that had been washed and sandblasted in order to remove any corrosion. It was then covered with a clear protectant and painted with rubber padding where it would support the spacecraft. Jim Remar, president and chief operating officer at the Cosmosphere, said the discarded acrylic cover had been a less than ideal means of preserving the historic artifact. “The acrylic prevented the spacecraft from breathing. As materials deteriorate, they emit gas. The acrylic trapped the off-gassing in the spacecraft and [this] could accelerate or increase the rate of deterioration. With the removal of the acrylic, it is now able to breathe and the off-gas is exhausted out.” [4] However, Freedom 7’sjourney will not end there. In 2016 the Smithsonian plans to display it as part of a major, brand new Apollo-themed gallery that tells through dis­plays the monumental story of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs.

Duane E. Graveline, M. D., is a former U. S. Air Force flight surgeon, aerospace

medical research scientist, and analyst of Soviet bioastronautics. He was selected as one of six scientist-astronauts by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1965. These days, he is a prolific writer on medical issues and science fiction subjects.

In the dark jungles of Cameroon the female chimpanzee hardly appeared to feel the sting of the dart – it appeared no more than the sting of a hornet. But within seconds her vision dimmed, her muscles became strangely unresponsive, and she plummeted to the ground. A native dragged her unconscious body to the center of a large net spread across the jungle floor. Soon her two offspring slowly made their way to her body and the trap was sprung. The two young chimps then began their long trip to Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico where they joined a group of chimp trainees. The year was 1959. Their training for space was soon to start. One of them, designated No. 65 during the training program, would be called “Ham” after the Holloman Aviation Medical Center upon suc­cessful completion of his space flight.

On 31 January 1961, Ham’s welcoming handshake after his 16 minute 39 second space flight became known to the world. Three months later (but unfortunately three weeks after the Soviets launched Yuri Gagarin), Alan Shepard was to make his historic space flight.

We in America, in seeking some means to erase the shame of being second in manned space flight, would say that Gagarin had no option for manual control, whereas Shepard was allowed some control of his vehicle, thereby giving us some justification for the claim to have been the first to demonstrate normal extremity function during weightlessness. But even here, there is some room for debate. Ham had full use of his extremities in his responses to blinking test lights during the MR-2 mission, demonstrating that use of extremities would be normal during zero gravity. So few doubts remained.

I had selected zero gravity deconditioning as my primary area of research, and I recall with amusement the dire predictions of other scientists who made headlines back then with their warnings of physiological malfunctions that would result from even short-term zero gravity exposure. To me the critical factor was time, and you could go to the literature on bed rest to get the lions’ share of it – muscle weakness, bone demineralization and orthostatic intolerance. I even had a personal introduction to the deconditioning effects at the age of 10 years while sliding out of bed following nine days of bed rest for an appen­dectomy. After reassuring the nurse that I was fine, I would’ve slid to the floor had it not been for her support. Imagine, at age 10 years I had an introduction to the effects of zero gravity, my future research subject. Eighty per cent of astronauts returning from the space station would show a similar response to standing upright on Earth the first time.

But I was not concerned with deconditioning as a result of such short exposures to weightlessness as Ham’s ballistic flight, or even that of Alan Shepard. Zero gravity decon­ditioning as a medical concern would come; but it would come much later.

You need to remember that in the Cold War climate of those days, one could be criti­cized for saying anything good about Soviet accomplishments. One of my senior offi­cers was critical to the point of being caustic about my reports of Soviet progress in bioastronautics. I was assigned the role of intelligence analyst during this period. Calling me anti-American was one of the milder comments I would attract in those days, simply by reporting the truth. Prior to the Gemini 3 mission, by which time we had accrued a total of 34 orbits of manned space flight, the last thing that our team wanted to be told was that the Soviets had already achieved 292 manned orbits, and that their bioinstru­mentation was surprisingly sophisticated. During this entire period we were gleaning what we could from Soviet data. Analyzing that data was my job. I will summarize the mission of Yuri Gagarin next, owing to its obvious implications for what soon followed in the United States.

On 12 April 1961, Yuri Gagarin made the world’s first manned orbital flight. Its total duration from launch to landing was 108 minutes. His bioinstrumentation was the same as that of all the other cosmonauts who followed in the Vostok program: a respiratory moni­tor, two leads of electrocardiograms, blood pressure, precordial vibrocardiogram and gal­vanic skin response (GSR). The orbital plane was inclined at 64 degrees to the equator, and the initial altitudes were selected to guarantee natural orbital decay within the lifetime of the available consumables. The cabin atmosphere was of a composition and pressure equivalent to that at sea level.

The U. S. accessed Soviet biodata in real time, giving our space scientists relevant biodata throughout the mission. Lacking a frame of reference, we had no means of utilizing the precordial vibrocardiogram information or that of the GSR. But we did have electrocardiographic data throughout the flight, and this banished doubts about whether the human body could adjust to the new environment of zero gravity. In the jargon of the space age, Gagarin’s heart rate and rhythm were nominal (expected) all the way. He displayed a normal sinus rhythm throughout (the electrical activity of each heart beat originated from the usual spot near the atrial sinus), with a relative tachycar­dia (faster) in the launch and pre-deorbit phases of the mission. The mission plan was to descend by parachute, so useful biotelemetry terminated at retrofire. We physiolo­gists and doctors needed to hold our breath no longer. Our amazing bodies were able to adapt to zero gravity.

And the flight of Freedom 7 on 5 May proved to be no different in its effect on Alan Shepard. His electrocardiogram was to show normal sinus rhythm all the way with nominal rates. The non-medical reader might wonder about my use of the term “normal sinus rhythm,” and this is because the origin of our heart beat can vary considerably. The usual origin of our pacemaker is the wall of the right atrium. From there the electrical activity spreads across the atria to the nodal tissue at the junction of the atria and the ventricles. The pacemaker of the heart can be normal sinus, atrial, or nodal, or indeed any spot in between. Needless to say, had Gagarin or Shepard’s pacemaker shifted to any spot in the heart other than the sinus, physiologists would have been concerned. It did not, so everyone was happy. On the basis of Gagarin’s data we had no concerns about Shepard’s ability to adapt to zero gravity, and he took his five minutes of weight­lessness in his stride.

Alan Shepard: On 11 November 1923 in the mountains of Derry, New Hampshire was born a man who was to pee in his pants to an audience of spacecraft designers and launch personnel, and later hit golf balls on the Moon. A naval aviator of almost unsurpassed tal­ent and cool daring prior to his selection as a Mercury astronaut, he had more flight hours than anyone else. In a community of the bold and bright, he stood out like a beacon. It seemed to me that on those gravel roads so common to space launch facilities, every bend in the road was a challenge to throw gravel with his Corvette. One time, NASA tracking brought us together at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. He may have trusted me to read the medical console, but he never trusted me to take the wheel of his prize automo­bile. It was generally a pleasure to be with him except for the telephone calls. It seemed as if the whole world wanted to meet him and shake his hand. Since I was the one who sat with him at the restaurant, I was the one they called. I asked him how to handle them. He said they just want to talk, and I learned what it meant to have been in space – to be an astronaut.

Alan Shepard had the grin of a rascal and when, in 1961, a few months after his flight, I showed him a small photo which just begged to be sketched in charcoal, without hesita­tion he wrote across the bottom of the blank sketch paper, “That’s the cleanest joke I know.” I spent months working on that charcoal sketch.

Sometime in the 1990s, having had that sketch hanging in my home in northern Vermont for a couple of decades with only my guests to see it, I finally decided to drive down to Derry and turn it in. Having spent years absorbing all that was known of Gagarin, I was surprised at the twists and turns involved in trying to find where space memorabilia relat­ing to Alan Shepard might be stored.

Most people on the main street of Derry just looked at me questioningly. Finally, one told me that he knew of some space papers stored in a room over the firehouse. Needless to say, I was astonished. There was no marker, no discernible memories – nothing to tell the world that this was the birthplace of Alan Shepard. Having just completed my ten years with the U. S. Air Force and my special assignment as an analyst of Soviet bioastro­nautics, the cosmonauts and astronauts were like a family to me. There could hardly be a child in the Soviet Union who didn’t worship Yuri Gagarin. His name was everywhere and is still revered. Yet here was his American counterpart in some shelves over the

firehouse with no markers visible to the public three decades after his historic flight. The Soviets named their entire space complex after Yuri Gagarin, and to me these New Hampshire folks appeared to have almost forgotten their one-time favorite son. They were waiting to build a suitable structure, I was told. But thirty years? I would like to think that my visit, with my sketch and a few e-mails in hand, played a role in helping them finally to start building a suitable structure.

Now a well-marked sign off Interstate 93 directs traffic to Derry, the home town of Alan Shepard. Regardless of how large is the sign or the museum, they will be insufficient to encompass the memories of the man I remember.

Duane E. Graveline, M. D.,

Merritt Island, Florida, 2013

In the very early hours of Tuesday morning, 31 January, Ham and Minnie were given a final physical examination. At 1:45 a. m., having been fitted with biomedical recording sensors and dressed in disposable diapers and plastic waterproof pants, both animals

waited patiently as an operational test was conducted of the sensors. They were then dressed in their spacesuits and firmly zipped and strapped into their individual contour couches. Psychomotor stimulus plates were then attached to the soles of each animal’s feet and electrically checked for continuity. Their arms were left free in order that the one who flew the mission would be able to undertake the assigned psychomotor tasks aboard the spacecraft.

As preparations continued around them just after 3:00 a. m., Ham and Minnie enjoyed a prescribed breakfast consisting of some cooking oil and flavored gelatin, half a fresh egg, half a cup of baby cereal, and several spoons of condensed milk. All the tests had determined that Ham remained the better behaved and more animated of the two chimpanzees, and his place in space flight history seemed assured.

The next step in the proceedings was to install and bolt down the lids covering the chimpanzees, following which inlet and outlet air hoses were fitted and the air flow initiated. The containers were then checked for any air leakage, but all proved to be in order. At 5:04 a. m., after all the pre-flight tests had been satisfactorily completed, the handlers were instructed to drive the transfer van over to the launch pad, arriving 25 minutes later. Once there, Ham’s container was switched from the transfer van’s air supply to a portable oxygen supply, then carried to the gantry and up the elevator to the spacecraft level. After being gently inserted and secured into the capsule it was connected to the onboard environmental control system and electrical system. The physiological monitoring of Ham was then switched over to the blockhouse. Hatch closure was completed at 7:10, with an anticipated liftoff time of 9:30 a. m.

Before the gantry was removed from the Redstone rocket at 8:05 a. m., the transfer van, with the fully prepared backup chimp still aboard, was moved a safe distance away, adjacent to the blockhouse. Still enclosed in her container, Minnie would be monitored up until 30 minutes prior to liftoff, at which time the container with its portable air supply and all her attending personnel would exit the van and move into the blockhouse.

At 9:08 a. m., the count was recycled and the gantry rolled back along its tracks into position. The spacecraft hatch was then opened to cool an overheated electronic inverter which was causing the temperature in Ham’s container to rise. Technicians worked frantically to clear up a number of minor difficulties as concerns grew over a band of stormy weather closing in on the Cape. Repairs were soon completed and the countdown resumed at 10:15 a. m. But as the pad crew were evacuating the gantry its elevator jammed and had to be hurriedly fixed.

Liftoff finally occurred at 11:54:51 a. m. By then, Ham had spent nearly five hours strapped on his back inside the spacecraft. Two Mercury astronauts observed the ascent from the air, with Deke Slayton and Wally Schirra circling the launch area in F-106 jets.

Liftoff of the MR-2 mission. (Photo: NASA)

At 12:30 a. m. on 2 May 1961 the countdown for MR-3 began, but the prospects of a launch were never very good. In spite of being late spring, violent thunderstorms had rumbled over the Cape that evening; it was raining heavily and occasional lightning flashes danced up and down the Florida coastline. Lining the beaches were people determined to see the launch, shivering under raincoats and ponchos, praying for the filthy weather to clear. The loading of liquid oxygen into the Redstone went ahead, but as the minutes ticked by the odds against flying steadily increased.

THUNDER OVER THE CAPE

Following the unexpected orbital mission of Yuri Gagarin and the nation’s growing eagerness for an American to be launched into space, NASA had decided that as they were a civilian space agency and Mercury was an open program – unlike that of the Soviet Union – they would permit each flight to be televised live. On being assured about the abort system’s capabilities, the thoroughness of the training, the readiness of the astronaut, and the integrity of the hardware involved, President Kennedy had agreed that the world should see the launch live. Nevertheless, he and his advisors remained concerned about a catastrophe in which the astronaut was lost as the world looked on. The television coverage was scheduled to commence at T-2 minutes and, around the nation, families settled in front of their television sets in a state of nervous excitement.

As arranged, flight surgeon Bill Douglas stole into crew quarters at 1:00 a. m. and gently roused the sleeping astronaut along with his backup, John Glenn. In response to Shepard’s mumbled query, Douglas informed him the weather was quite bad at the moment, but a decision had been made to begin fueling the rocket. They were to proceed with the medical examination and suiting-up in the hope the weather would clear. After a shower and shave, Shepard donned his dressing gown and then joined Grissom and Glenn for an early morning high-protein breakfast of orange juice, filet mignon wrapped in bacon, and scrambled eggs, although the others opted instead for poached eggs.

C. Burgess, Freedom 7: The Historic Flight of Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Springer Praxis Books, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-01156-1_4, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014

Then, ready to face whatever lay in store for him that morning, it was time to undergo the pre-flight physical and psychiatric examinations.

Medical tests established that Shepard was still in the same perfect health he had previously enjoyed; his eyesight was normal, there were no respiratory ailments, his ear canals were clear, his thyroid was smooth and without any tenderness, his heart rhythm was regular and his blood pressure gave no discernible hint of the challenges he might soon face.

Then a lengthy interview with the NASA psychiatrist confirmed the astronaut’s mental preparedness. The psychiatrist’s report stated, in part, that Shepard “appeared relaxed and cheerful. He was alert and had abundant energy and enthusiasm. [His manner] was appropriate. He discussed potential hazards of the flight realistically and expressed slight apprehension concerning them. However, he dealt with such feelings by repetitive consideration of how each possible eventuality could be managed. Thinking was almost totally directed to the flight. No disturbances in thought or intel­lectual functions were observed.” [1]

The next phase of the pre-launch operations for Shepard entailed having an array of medical sensors attached to his body. Clad only in the bottom half of his specially padded and ventilated long-johns, he stood patiently while the doctors positioned the

six sensors which would monitor and transmit his physiological state to the Mission Control Center. In this procedure, doctors glued a non-conducting cup containing a non-irritating paste to his skin, and used this paste as the lead-off from the skin. A shielded wire attached to a stainless steel mesh was buried within the paste, but not touching the skin. Four of these sensors went in predetermined spots under the right armpit, on the upper and lower chest, and on the lower left side of his body. Another was inserted into Shepard’s rectum to record his anal temperature, and the last went below the nostrils to monitor his respiration. The six sensor wires were then bunched together in the common terminal that would later be plugged into a socket located adjacent to his right knee in the spacecraft.

Next, Shepard made his way into the dressing room where NASA suit technician Joe Schmitt was waiting to assist in the awkward procedure of donning his $10,000 pressure suit and helmet. The first item of clothing was long cotton underwear with ribbed sections on the arms, legs, and back to facilitate the circulation of air. Next came the custom-made, 20-pound silvery space suit itself, which was comprised of an inner layer of rubber and an outer layer of aluminized nylon. The suit was sealed by means of airtight zippers, laces, and straps, and encircling the neck area was a soft rubber cone that would make the suit waterproof when the helmet had been removed for egress. Although the suit was inflatable, this safeguarding measure would only be taken if there was a loss of air pressure inside the capsule, and it would allow the astronaut 90 valuable minutes of protection. Once inflated, the suit became almost rigid, although the gloves were designed with curved fingers to allow the astronaut to grip the controls, albeit with the exception of a single finger on the left glove, which remained straight for the purpose of pushing buttons.

Shepard took a seat, and after both legs of the suit had been inserted one at a time, the bundled sensor wires were carefully threaded through a hole in the thigh area. He then stood up and slipped his arms one at a time into the sleeves of the suit, which was zippered across his chest and middle. After pulling boots over his white socks and securing them, Shepard pulled on his gloves and zipped them to each sleeve. He also slipped on a pair of plastic overshoes which he would remove prior to insertion into the spacecraft. These were to prevent dirt picked up on the way to the hatch of Freedom 7 from entering the capsule. Finally, Joe Schmitt lowered Shepard’s helmet over his head, securing it in place with a ring lock.

An air tightness test was then conducted on the space suit. To accomplish this, Shepard reclined in a contour couch and closed his helmet’s faceplate. Schmitt then inflated the suit to 5 psi and checked it for leaks. Finding none, the suit was deflated again and a portable air-conditioning unit was connected to the suit. Shepard would carry this in his hand from that moment until he was ready to plug himself into the spacecraft’s air-conditioning system.

The preparations complete, Shepard then sat in Hangar S awaiting the go/no-go decision, his suit cooled by the air-conditioning unit.

“The signs were not propitious,” he later explained. “And at 3:30 a. m., with the liquid oxygen already loaded aboard the booster, the technicians took a look at the lightning and declared a ‘hold.’ They started working again at 3:50, with the count at T minus 290 minutes.” [2]

At last, and for the first time in history, a spacecraft had completely returned to Earth from space with a human being on board. Even Yuri Gagarin and his Soviet space masters could not match this technological feat – although several years would pass before the truth was finally revealed – as the first cosmonaut had been ejected from his descending Vostok capsule to parachute to the ground according to highly secret plans. A workable and reliable retrorocket system had yet to be developed by Soviet engineers that would allow a controlled, soft landing for returning cosmonauts. As a result, all six Vostok pilots were required to eject from their vehicles. One reason for keeping this secret was that the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, which rules on aviation records, requires that a pilot be in his aircraft at the time of landing.

Arthur Cohen, who headed the IBM team that created and ran the computers that modeled and then tracked the flight, would report, “Everything went smoothly. All the plotting was perfect. Everything on the flight was nominal. There was really no prob­lem whatsoever. It landed at exactly the right place.” [10]

For his part, Shepard was exuberant over his safe return. “Splashdown!” he later wrote of that moment. “Into the water we went with a good pop! Abrupt, but not bad. No worse than the kick in the butt when I was catapulted off a carrier deck. This was home plate!” [11]

Prior to impacting the water, he had removed his knee straps. He now began his post-splashdown procedures. The first thing was to release his face plate seal bottle. This was a small pressure bottle joined by a thin hose to a connector next to his left jaw. It was used to pressurize a pneumatic seal when the face plate was closed. He then removed the exhaust hose from the helmet.

Once Freedom 7 had splashed down, it quickly swayed over on its side, about 60 degrees from vertical, covering the right porthole with seawater and causing Shepard to lean over onto his right side in the couch. Seeing that the porthole’s exterior was completely under water, he deduced that everything was going to plan. Through the other porthole he could also make out the bright green fluorescing dye automatically spreading out through the water to mark his position for recovery aircraft.

“As I waited for the shifted balance to right my great spacecraft – but lousy boat – I kept thinking about the chimp’s near-disappearance beneath the ocean. I checked and checked the cabin for leaks, ready to punch out. But I stayed dry.”

Shepard then activated the ‘rescue aids’ switch to jettison the reserve parachute, thereby reducing some of the top-heavy weight of the spacecraft and allowing it to stabilize itself upright in the water. “Shifting the center of gravity had worked, and the capsule came back upright.” [12] Flipping the switch also released the HF antenna, although he did leave his transmit switch in the UHF position. To his relief, all of the recovery aids seemed to be working well, although he was not to know that the HF antenna had failed to extend skywards. However, with the recovery ships and aircraft in the immediate vicinity its function as a location device was not needed.

“I’d broken my helmet at the neck ring seal at this point, and I did no transmitting here,” he later observed in his initial flight report aboard the recovery carrier. “I left the switch on R/T [receive/transmit] because I didn’t want any discharge from the UHF antenna [13].

“I could not see any water seeping into the capsule, but I could hear all kinds of gurgling sounds around me, so I wasn’t sure whether we were leaking. I remember reassuring myself that I had practiced getting out of the capsule under water and that I could do it now if I had to. But I didn’t have to try. Slowly, but steadily, the capsule began to right itself.” [14]

It was time to assure everyone he had survived the splashdown by making contact with the communications relay airplane (codename Cardfile Two Three) which was circling overhead.

“Cardfile Two Three” he called. “This is Freedom 7. Would you please relay: All is okay.”

“This is Two Three” came the reply. “Roger that.”

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

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

Shepard continued his preparations to leave Freedom 7 as the spacecraft became almost vertical in the water. He began to document the instruments prior to shutting down the power. “I had just started to make a final reading on all of the instruments when the helicopter pilot called me. I had already told him that I was in good shape, but he seemed in a hurry to get me out. I heard the shepherd’s hook catch hold of the top of the capsule, and then the pilot called again.” [15]