Category Freedom 7

Redstone design work was completed in 1952. In October, after the first models had been manufactured at Huntsville, the Chrysler Corporation was hired to build them in Detroit, Michigan. The contract was sealed on 19 June 1953, just five weeks prior to the armistice of the Korean War. The production home of the Redstone was to be a vast government – owned plant located in what was better recognized back then as the world’s automo­tive center. In fact, the agreement called for the prime contractor to build the first 12 missiles at the Redstone Arsenal. The remainder were all built by Chrysler. While the total number of Redstone missiles built varies by source, there were at least 137 and perhaps as many as 146.

The first flight test of a Redstone was at Cape Canaveral on 20 August 1953, but a fault in the inertial guidance system caused it to go awry. After it had struggled to an altitude of 24,000 feet the range safety officer detonated a package of dynamite built into the wayward rocket, blowing it to pieces before it could fall back and cause any damage on the ground. With the problem identified through radio telemetry, the fault was fixed and the second flight was successfully completed.

Test flights continued over the next five years, and many refinements were made to enhance the rocket’s already enviable reliability. From 1953 through 1958, a total of 37 were fired to test structure, engine performance, guidance and control, tracking and telemetry.

In August of 1958, a Redstone became the first American missile to participate in a nuclear test, by detonating a 3.8 megaton warhead as part of Operation Hardtack. While the Redstone’s role as a weapon delivery system was brief, it nevertheless had a major impact on America’s early space program.

Due to Shepard’s ongoing post-flight training commitments with NASA, it wasn’t until 9 June 1962 that the people of the Granite State were finally able to openly express their admiration for the famed astronaut. Proclaimed “Alan Shepard Day” by Governor Wesley Powell, the occasion was marked by a well-planned parade that began at the Shepard family home in Derry and continued through the town streets. Accompanying the official cars in the preceding motorcade were some 2,000 people, 19 bands and 20 colorful floats. The bands played and the flags fluttered amidst a profusion of bunting and paper streamers, and crowds roared their welcome at each stop as Shepard and his family waved from their open convertible. Governor Powell made it to Derry for the special day, and was obviously swept up in the excitement when he somewhat grandly overstated, “This is the greatest day in the history of the state!” The motorcade termi­nated later that day at the steps of the state Capitol in Concord.

As the parade slowly progressed along the main street of Derry, some Navy patrol planes roared overhead, buzzing the town as part of the celebration, leading Shepard to comment with a wry smile, “I understand there’s a Navy flier here who tried that once years ago, and didn’t get away with it.” [2]

At one of the stops along the circuitous route to Concord, the Shepards witnessed the dedication of a flagpole erected in his honor at Grenier Field in Manchester. He recalled for the assembled gathering that in his youth he used to sweep out hangars at the field in return for flying lessons. “This,” he said proudly, “is where my original interest and devotion to aviation had its beginnings.”

The tumultuous occasion proved a great inspiration for young David Barka. “It was then that my father and I took on a project together to build a coaster. We lived on a hill and all the kids in the neighborhood built carts to coast down the hill. Mine was in the shape of a rocket that I named Freedom 7 in honor of Shepard’s flight. That coaster sat in my folks’ basement for close to 40 years, and when my Dad passed away in 1999 I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. I brought it to the house where I then lived with my wife and three children, not knowing that in 2002 we would purchase the Shepard home. The Freedom 7 coaster is still here.”

Today, David and Debi Barka reside in the large white colonial house, custom-built in 1921 on a 4.2-acre lot at 64 East Derry Road, the former home of America’s first astronaut. “We love this house both for its beautiful traditional architecture and for its special history,” he told the author. “We have modernized it where necessary, but preserved unique features such as the door casing that marked Alan and Polly’s height as they grew, and the amazing built-in organ that Alan’s father played; he was the organist at the First Parish Church down the road.

“My wife and I treasure the special meaning that this house has in the history of our country, and especially our town, and are happy to be a small part of it.” [3]

“There was a lot less vibration and noise rumble than I had expected,” Shepard later explained. “It was extremely smooth – a subtle, gentle, gradual rise off the ground. There was nothing rough or abrupt about it. But there was no question that I was going, either. I could see it on the instruments, hear it on the headphones, feel it all around me.” [5]

Mildly surprised by the lack of vibration, Shepard was also pleased to find that he did not have to turn his radio receiver up to full volume in order to hear incoming transmis­sions. After communications were verified, he transmitted every 30 seconds in order to maintain voice contact and report the state of the spacecraft systems to the ground.

According to Flight Director Chris Kraft, “A communication procedure had been developed between the astronaut and the control center so that if the cabin and suit pressures were not maintained, an abort was to be initiated.” This would restrict the peak altitude to 70,000 feet. “By aborting at this time (i. e., between T+l min. 16 secs. and T+1 min. 29 secs.), the time above 50,000 feet could be limited to about 60 to 70 seconds.” [6] But things proceeded smoothly.

Shepard later told Life magazine, “For the first minute, the ride continued smooth and my main job was to keep the people on the ground as relaxed and informed as I could. I reported that everything was functioning perfectly, that all the systems were working, that the g’s were mounting slightly [just] as predicted. The long hours of rehearsal had helped. It was almost as if I had been there before. It was enormously strange and exciting, but my earlier practice gave the whole thing a comfortable air of familiarity. [And] Deke’s clear transmissions in my headphones reassured me still more.” [7]

The first critical moment was 1 minute 24 seconds after liftoff, when the vehicle passed through the point of maximum dynamic pressure, known in NASA parlance as Max Q, when the aerodynamic stress reached its peak. Shepard’s head began to shake in an involuntary reaction to the vibration and his vision blurred a little.

“I was at two and a half times my normal weight. So far the flight was a piece of cake,” Shepard later stated. “I was through the smoothest part of powered ascent, and now came the rutted road, the barrier I had to cross before leaving the atmosphere behind. [The] Redstone was hammering at shock waves gathering stubbornly before its passage, slicing from below the speed of sound through the barrier to supersonic [heading] straight up. Now I was in Max Q, the zone of maximum dynamic pressure where the forces of flight and ascent challenged the booster rocket. My helmet slammed against the contour couch. Eighteen inches before me the instrument panel

became a blur, almost impossible to read. One thousand pounds of pressure for every square foot of Freedom 7 was trying to crack the capsule. I started to call Deke, but changed my mind. A garbled transmission at this point could send Mercury Control into a flap. It might even trigger an abort. And then the Redstone slipped through the hammering blows into smoothness. Out of Max Q, I keyed the mike.

“‘Okay, it’s a lot smoother now. A lot smoother.’

“‘Roger,’ said Deke.” [8]

The shutdown of the booster came at T+2 minutes 22 seconds at an acceleration of 6.2 g’s, which meant in effect that Shepard now weighed 1,000 pounds. He was find­ing it difficult to talk as the g-forces constricted his throat and vocal cords. At the same time, a signal was transmitted to the spacecraft for its escape tower to separate. Above Shepard, a large solid-fuel rocket roared into life and fierce flames erupted from its three canted nozzles, ripping the tower loose from the spacecraft and pulling it away at a safe angle. “Immediately I noticed the noise in tower jettisoning. I didn’t notice any smoke coming by the porthole as I’d expected I might in my peripheral vision. I think maybe I was riveted on the ‘tower jettison’ green light which looked so good in the capsule.” [9] He promptly threw the ‘retro-jettison’ switch to its ‘disarm’ setting.

Ten seconds after the tower departed, the spacecraft separated from the Redstone by severing the connecting Marman clamp and firing the three posigrade rockets on the retropack for a duration of one second.

After the flight, Shepard said he was aware of the noise of the separation rockets firing. “I don’t recall thinking anything in particular at separation, but there’s good medical evidence that I was concerned about it at the time. My pulse rate reached its peak here [at] 132, and started down afterward.” [10]

If the automatic systems had failed, the escape tower and spacecraft separation events could have been manually initiated.

“Cap sep is green,” Shepard reported, as he slipped into a weightless state. As he later observed, “Moments before, I had weighed 1,000 pounds. Now a feather on the surface of the Earth weighed more than I did. Being weightless was… wonderful, marvelous, incredible. [It was a] miracle in comfort. The tiny capsule seemed to expand magically as pressure points vanished. No up, no down, no lying or sitting or standing. A missing washer and bits of dust drifted before my eyes. I laughed out loud. I’d expected silence at this point, with the atmosphere something far below me and no rush of wind despite so many thousands of miles an hour. No friction. No turbulence. But instead there was the murmur of Freedom 7, as though a brook were running mechanically through its structure. Inverters moaned, gyroscopes whirred, cooling fans had their own sound, cameras hummed, the radios crackled and emitted their tones before and after conversational exchanges. The sounds flowed together, some dull, others sharper. [It was a] miniature mechanical orchestra. I found those unex­pected sounds most welcome; they meant things were working, doing, pushing, and repeating. They were the sounds of life.” [11]

Five seconds after Freedom 7 separated from the booster the periscope extended, and the autopilot initiated a turnaround maneuver in which the spacecraft was yawed through 180 degrees to position the heat shield forward, in the direction of reentry. In effect, Shepard was flying backwards.

One major objective of the mission – which would greatly distinguish it from the automated flight of Yuri Gagarin – was timed to start at T+3 minutes 10 seconds, when Shepard switched off the automatic control systems and took manual control of the spacecraft’s attitude or angular position.

“I made this manipulation one axis at a time, switching to pitch, yaw, and roll in that order until I had full control of the craft. I used the instruments first and then the periscope as reference controls. The reaction of the spacecraft was very much like that obtained in the air-bearing [ALFA] trainer…. The spacecraft movement was smooth and could be controlled precisely.” [12]

He was to maintain manual control of the spacecraft throughout the remainder of the flight by using various combinations of the attitude and rate-control systems, also known as the fly-by-wire mode.

At T+3 minutes 50 seconds, he made a number of visual observations using the periscope. These included such things as weather fronts, cloud coverage, and certain preselected reference points on the ground. As he said later, “I was zinging along high above the planet’s atmosphere at better than five thousand miles per hour, but there was nothing by which to judge speed. You need relative comparison for that: a tree, a building, a passing spacecraft. My view of the outside universe was restricted to the

capsule’s two small portholes, and through those I saw that very deep blue, almost jet black, sky. There was only one available reference to tell me I was actually moving: the Earth below.” [13]

He quickly realized there was a problem with the periscope. While sitting on the launch pad enduring the numerous delays he had tried to look downward through the periscope and found that he was almost blinded by sunshine filling the cabin. He had immediately inserted filters to cut down the glare, but had forgotten to remove the filters prior to launch. Now, peering through the scope, he could only see the view below in shades of gray. As he reached for the filter knob the pressure gauge on his left wrist accidentally bumped against the abort handle.

“I stopped that movement real quick,” he explained later. “Sure, the escape tower was gone, and hitting the abort handle might not have caused any great bother, but this was still a test flight, and I wasn’t about to play guessing games.”

Gray or not, he found the view quite enthralling.

“On the periscope,” he informed Mission Control. “What a beautiful view!” [14]

In 1970 Cdr. Ted Wilbur reflected on transporting Alan Shepard on his aircraft from the USS Lake Champlain to Grand Bahama Island, “No sooner had I cleared the bow than he was out of his seat in the cabin and up to the cockpit, with that big wide grin spread

across his face. Shouting above the noise of the COD’s engines, he described his morn­ing’s monumental adventure, and it was easy to see he had been on top of the world, literally.

“National Geographic photographer Dean Conger was on board too, and after a series of pictures were taken, I pointed up ahead to where the Bahamas were coming into view. By then it was mid-afternoon and, as usual, tall [cloud] build-ups were forming over each island. I commented to Shepard that it would be a shame to spoil his day by running into a batch of bad weather. (The strip at Grand Bahama has no instrument facility.) He looked the situation over thoughtfully, then laughed: ‘Swell! Let’s divert to Nassau and pitch a liberty!’ Unfortunately, we made it into GBI in good shape.” [50]

Dean Conger was pictured shaking Shepard’s hand on the aircraft. “Alan and I chatted away,” he recalled. “But I don’t remember any of what we said.” [51]

After liftoff:

+ 00.00.02 (Shepard):

+ 00.00.05 (CapCom):

+ 00.00.08 (Shepard):

+ 00.00.13 (CapCom):

+ 00.00.25 (Shepard):

+ 00.00.32 (CapCom):

+ 00.00.48 (Shepard):

+ 00.00.58 (Shepard):

+ 00.01.21 (Shepard):

+ 00.01.27 (CapCom):

+ 00.01.33 (Shepard):

+ 00.01.42 (CapCom):

+ 00.01.50 (Shepard):

+ 00.01.56 (CapCom):

(continued)

Understand you do not have a light.

I do not have a light. I see the straps falling away. I heard a noise. I will use override.

Roger.

Override used. The light is green.

… retroject.

Ahhh, Roger. Periscope is retracting.

Periscope retracting.

I’m on fly-by-wire. Going to reentry attitude.

Reentry attitude, Roger. Trajectory is right on the button. Okay, Buster. Reentry attitude. Switching to ASCS normal. Roger.

ASCS is okay.

Understand.

Switching HF for radio check.

Freedom Seven, CapCom. How do you read HF?

Ahhh, Roger. Reading you loud and clear HF, Deke. How me?

Back to UHF

This is Freedom Seven.

G buildup, 3, 6, 9.

Okay, okay.

Coming through loud and clear.

Okay.

Okay.

CapCom; your impact will be right on the button.

This is Seven. Okay.

45,000feet now.

Aah, 40,000feet.

I’m back on ASCS.

35,000.

30,000feet.

CapCom; how do you read now?

Loud and clear. 25,000.

Aah, Roger, Deke, read you loud and clear. How me? Switching over to GBI.

Aah, Roger.

The Redstone’s association with Project Mercury began as the result of a January 1958 meeting of top military personnel at the ABMA. The Department of the Army had proposed a joint Army, Navy, and Air Force program to send a man into space and back, under the project working title of “Man Very High.” In April, however, the Air Force decided that it did not wish to participate, and the Navy was becoming increas­ingly lukewarm on the joint service venture. As a result, the Army decided to push on with the project alone. Now redesignated “Project Adam,” a formal proposal for the military space venture was submitted to the Office of the Chief of Research and Development on 17 April 1958.

As outlined in the proposal, the intention of Project Adam was to send a man on a bal­listic flight to an altitude of around 170 to 200 miles in a recoverable capsule atop a Redstone missile. It was pointed out that much of the supporting research for such a space venture had already been carried out at the ABMA in Huntsville. In turn, the Secretary of the Army, Wilber M. Brucker, forwarded the Project Adam proposal to the Department of Defense’s recently created Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) the following month, along with a recommendation that the agency consider funding the project. But this was rejected in a memorandum to the Secretary of the Army dated 11 July 1958, in which Roy W. Johnson, the first director of the ARPA, indicated that Project Adam was not considered integral to the agency’s own man-in-space program.

On 8 August 1958 President Eisenhower appointed 52-year-old Dr. Thomas Keith Glennan, president of the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio, to serve as the first administrator of NASA. For continuity his deputy would be 60-year-old Hugh L. Dryden, who had been in charge of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). NASA came into official existence on 1 October. Just two weeks later, Glennan was in conflict with the Secretary of the Army about a proposal that the Army transfer to NASA the 2,100 scientists and engineers at the ABMA and all of its facilities and personnel at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. In the end, on 3 December, President Eisenhower ordered a compromise which involved transferring JPL to NASA, but under the direction of the California Institute of Technology. The president allowed the Army to retain its ABMA and the people under von Braun, but granted NASA the right to make use of the Huntsville capabilities on a fully cooperative basis. Glennan later announced that an increasing proportion of the work undertaken at Huntsville would be shifted to his agency in future contracts.

When NASA subsequently sought discussions on the possible use of the Army’s Redstone or Jupiter rockets in support of the civilian manned space program, the Army, now without a manned space program due to the decision to abandon Project Adam, decided to cooperate. As a result, NASA issued a request to the ABMA for eight Redstone missiles to be used by Project Mercury. By arrangement with NASA, these rockets were to be assembled by the Chrysler Corporation and shipped to the Redstone Arsenal for final checkout by the ABMA.

At the time of the Redstone’s selection for the Mercury program in January 1959, there were two very different versions of the rocket. The first, designated Block II, was an advanced version of the tactical missile design incorporating an improved engine, the Rocketdyne A-7, which used a combination of alcohol and liquid oxygen (LOX) as its propellants. However, there were concerns that this propellant mixture would almost – but not entirely – achieve the thrust necessary to boost a one-ton spacecraft into space. North American Aviation set its Rocketdyne Division the task of increas­ing the thrust by about 5 percent with the proviso that there could not be any changes to the existing propellant systems. They finally came up with a toxic mixture of unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and diethylenetriamine, to which the military gave the name Hydyne. When combined with LOX, this would provide the required addi­tional thrust. The Hydyne/LOX propellant was successfully utilized by the second modified version of the Redstone. Designated the Jupiter-C, this was a multistage rocket with larger tanks and Rocketdyne’s A-5 engine. It was a four-stage version of the Jupiter-C with small solid-fuel rockets for the upper stages that placed America’s first satellite, Explorer 1, into orbit around the Earth on 31 January 1958.

On 1 July 1960, a section of the Redstone Arsenal was transferred to NASA and a few weeks later President Eisenhower and NASA Administrator Glennan attended the rededication ceremony that made it the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, which rapidly became known by the acronym MSFC. It was here that a number of Redstone rockets would be produced and tested for the civilian space agency by the Development Operations Division of the ABMA in collaboration with the project management of the Space Task Group (STG). Cooperative panels were established between Marshall, the STG, and the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation of St. Louis,

Missouri, which was manufacturing the Mercury spacecraft, in order to implement standards, to coordinate design and operational goals between the three agencies, and to seamlessly integrate any changes into the overall program.

The Redstone configuration selected to meet the performance requirements of the Mercury program coupled the A-7 engine and propellants of the Block II model with the enlarged tankage of the Jupiter-C. In order to support the objectives of Project Mercury, some 800 modifications were made to the rocket’s existing characteristics and performance. This included the elongation of the 70-inch diameter tank unit by six feet to hold the fuel required for an additional 20 seconds of engine burn time. A new instrument compartment and adapter section was manufactured to mate with the spacecraft, along with an abort system developed by MSFC to protect the capsule and, eventually, its human occupant. With the capsule and escape power mounted on top, the Mercury-modified Redstone now stood at an overall length of 83 feet. The total liftoff weight at launch would be 66,000 pounds.

Dr. Joachim Kuttner was one of Wernher von Braun’s team of German scientists, and he said at the time that a great deal of care was taken in the production of each Redstone booster. “As these thin sheets of aluminum are curved and welded, each seam is minutely inspected by X-ray to make sure there are no invisible flaws that might give way under the extreme stresses of flight. Every component we use bears a special seal representing the winged god Mercury. This symbol constantly reminds assembly-line workers that a man’s life depends on the product.” [4]

Alan Shepard was an eighth-generation New Englander who could trace his roots back to the Mayflower as a celebrated descendant of Richard Warren (c.1580-1628), one of the first sea-weary passengers to set foot upon the snow-encrusted shores of what is now called Cape Cod following the ship’s arrival on 11 November 1620. Ten years previously, he had married Elizabeth Walker in Hertfordshire in England, but in seeking a better life for his struggling family he had traveled alone by ship to the New World. Once he had established himself on a parcel of land in Plymouth, his wife and children Mary, Ann, and Sarah sailed on the ship Anne to join him. He and Elizabeth would go on to have two sons named Nathaniel and Joseph.

Remarkably for the time, their children survived to adulthood, were married, and had large families. Consequently, a vast numbers of Americans can today trace their ancestry back to Richard Warren and the settlement of America. In addition to Alan Shepard, Warren’s descendants include such notables as Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and even the Wright brothers [4].

Shepard’s middle name comes from his grandmother, Annie Bartlett, who in 1887 married Frederick J. Shepard in her home town of Nottingham, New Hampshire. The couple built a large home on farmland in East Derry and had three sons: Frederick, Alan, and Henry. Born in 1891, Alan, who was better known as Bart, was the father of future astronaut, Alan B. Shepard, Jr.

In the book, We Seven, Shepard related his observations of the planet passing below:

My exclamation back to Deke about the “beautiful sight” was completely spontaneous. It was breath-taking. To the south I could see where the cloud

cover stopped at about Fort Lauderdale, and that the weather was clear all the way down past the Florida Keys. To the north I could see up the coast of the Carolinas to where the clouds just obscured Cape Hatteras. Across Florida to the west I could spot Lake Okeechobee, Tampa Bay, and even Pensacola. Because there were some scattered clouds far beneath me I was not able to see some of the Bahama Islands that I had been briefed to look for. So I shifted to an open area and identified Andros Island and Bimini. The colors around these ocean islands were brilliantly clear, and I could see sharp variations between the blue of blue water and the light green of the shoal areas near the reefs. It was really stunning.

But I did not just admire the view. I found that I could actually use it to help keep the capsule in the proper attitude. By looking through the periscope and

focusing down on Cape Canaveral as the zero reference point for the yaw con­trol axis, I discovered that this system would provide a fine backup in case the instruments and the autopilot happened to go out together on some future flight.

It was good to know that we could count on handling the capsule this extra way – provided, of course, that we had a clear view and knew exactly what we were looking at. Fortunately, I could look back and see the Cape very clearly. It was a fine reference [15].

Years later, Wally Schirra told interviewer Francis French that Shepard’s remarks on his “beautiful view” were exaggerated due to his problems with the periscope. As Schirra explained, all the early astronauts felt they had some sort of obligation to say something nice about the view from space for public and press consumption. “It was just the game that people play. I’ll never forget alan Shepard, on the first manned American flight, saying something to the effect of ‘What a beautiful view.’ I asked him later, did you see anything at all? He said ‘I couldn’t see a damn thing through that periscope – but I had to say something nice!’” [16]

At 5 minutes 11 seconds into the flight, Freedom 7 reached the highest point of its ballistic arc at 115.696 miles. It now began its downward curve on a trajectory that was calculated to end with a splashdown somewhere near the naval recovery ships standing by in the waters near Grand Bahama Island, southeast of the Cape.

Deke Slayton began to recite the countdown for the retro-fire maneuver. Shepard used the manual control stick to point the spacecraft’s blunt end 34 degrees below the horizon in pitch and set both the yaw and roll angles to zero.

“I worked the controls to the proper angle to test fire the three retro rockets. They weren’t necessary for descent on this suborbital, up-and-down mission, but they had to be proven for orbital flights to follow, when they would be critical to decelerate Mercury spaceships from orbital speed to initiate their return to Earth.

“‘Retro one.’ The first rocket fired and shoved me back against my couch. ‘Very smooth.’ “‘Roger, roger,’ from Deke.

“‘Retro two.’ Another blast of fire, another shove.

“‘Retro three. All three retro have fired.’

“‘All fired on the button,’ Deke said with satisfaction.” [17]

Each retrorocket was to burn for approximately 10 seconds, and they were fired in sequence at five-second intervals. “There was just a small, upsetting motion as our speed was slowed and I was pushed back into the couch a bit. But, as the rockets fired in sequence, each pushing the capsule somewhat off its proper angle, I brought it back. Perhaps the most encouraging product of the trip was the way I was able to stay on top of the flight by using manual controls.” [18]

One minute after the last rocket fired, the package, its job done, blew off at T+6 minutes 14 seconds. Shepard felt the package jettison, and as he watched through the periscope he saw the straps that had held it in place begin to fall away. A green lamp was meant to illuminate on the instrument panel to indicate a successful jettison, but

it failed to come on – the only signal failure of the entire mission. Knowing that the package had jettisoned, Shepard punched an override button and the light instantly illuminated.

Shepard verified Freedom 7’s HF radio, and then at T+6 minutes 20 seconds he orientated the vehicle into the reentry attitude with its blunt end 40 degrees below the local horizontal. Twenty-four seconds later the periscope retracted automatically.

FLOOD LIGHT

ASTRONAUTS WINDOW

WINDOW POLE

FLOOO LIGHT

MAIN PANEL

flashlight-

HATCH RELEASE INITIATOR

FLOOD IMM1

ENTRANCE HATCH

LEFT CONSOLE

FLOOD LIGHT

FUSE PANEL

WASTE CONTAINER

RIGHT CONSOLE

helium – bOTTLES

ESCAPE HATCH

TAPE RECORDER

The autopilot control function now allowed Shepard the freedom to conduct other flight-related functions. This included looking out through both portholes in the hope of gaining a general look at any stars or planets that might be visible, in addition to oblique views of the horizon. However, due to the Sun angle and light levels he was unable to see any celestial bodies.

THE SKIPPER AND A TIGHT SQUEEZE Posted by admin in Freedom 7 on October 30, 2015 Back on the USS Lake Champlain the spacecraft had been transferred below to the hangar bay, where Capt. Weymouth and his Executive Officer Cdr. Doner conferred briefly with Charles Tynan, NASA’s senior representative. Weymouth then climbed into Freedom 7 to get a feel for the cockpit, which he found was a little too small for him. He exited the hatch with the assistance of Cdr. Doner, who then took his turn to squeeze himself into the spacecraft. A beaming Alan Shepard jokes with fellow passengers on the way to GBI. (Photo: Dean Conger/NASA)   Astronaut meets photographer: Alan Shepard shakes hands with Dean Conger. (Photo cour­tesy of Dean Conger/NASA) After the ship had closed to within about eight miles of Florida during the night, Wayne Koons lifted off in Marine Corps helicopter #44 and as he hovered directly over Freedom 7 George Cox attached the harness to the spacecraft so that it could be ferried back to Cape Canaveral. “The helicopter had to get very close to the capsule to connect the harness with the shepherd’s hook,” Ed Killian recalled. “Although that day one should really have renamed that apparatus a ‘Shepard’s hook.’ Anyway, the helo hovered, while the ten­sion on the sling was taken up. The helo then moved to starboard over the capsule and lifted it clear of the platform. Helo and capsule were vectored toward the beach, accom­panied by an escort. The platform that had held the capsule was then moved below as the helo and its package swung off into the distance. The capsule would be displayed for a period of time at Cape Canaveral.” Capt. Weymouth exits the spacecraft with the assistance of Cdr. Landis Doner while Charles Tynan busies himself at left. (Photo courtesy of Ed Killian) Pilot Wayne Koons eases Freedom 7 off the landing pad ahead of the delivery flight across to Cape Canaveral. (Photo courtesy of Ed Killian) As Wayne Koons points out, “I don’t remember exactly where we set it down, but that’s when the news coverage came in earnest. There were print reporters and TV crews. At that time they did everything on sixteen-millimeter cameras. So they’d get us out with these cameras, and we did lots of interviews. It was a heady time.” [52] Despite Freedom 7 being the most celebrated piece of hardware in the world that day, its arrival at the Cape passed almost unheralded. Millions of television viewers had watched it ride atop the Redstone booster carrying Alan Shepard into space, but only 35 people – newsmen, engineers, guards – were on hand for its return. Set down just two miles from the launch pad that it had left the previous morning, Freedom 7 was given a brief examination and then hauled off to a hangar where, in the weeks to come, the engineers and technicians would go over it inch by inch. For Ed Killian and the USS Lake Champlain, things quickly returned to normal. “That ended our participation in the first U. S. manned space flight and we headed home. It had been a long cruise, but we’d been a part of something truly historic.” A recent photo of Ed and Kath Killian. (Photo courtesy of Ed Killian) Frank Yaquiant of Baltimore, Maryland agrees. He joined the carrier in May 1960 as a member of the V-4 division, responsible for the aviation fuel the planes used. “I was very happy to have been on ‘The Champ’ that day. My shipmates and I were witnesses to something truly special. It’s been almost 52 years since that memorable day, and the science of space travel has advanced far beyond that available during the flight of Freedom 7. The achievements of those past 50-plus years may make the events of May 5, 1961 seem rather modest to the uninformed [today]. But this was America’s first venture into manned space travel, and those of us aboard the USS Lake Champlain that day have the pride and satisfaction of knowing we were there at the beginning.” [53] As a footnote to the story, about ten years after Shepard’s flight, Ed Killian was dining with his family at Vargo’s restaurant in Houston when he became aware that Alan Shepard had just walked in. As Shepard was talking to a party of people who had greeted him at the door, Killian decided to introduce himself and strolled over. “As I drew near, the crowd began to break up. I offered my hand and said, ‘Admiral, I’m Ed Killian, and we haven’t met, but you may remember ‘Mercury, Mercury, this is Nighthawk. Do you read?’ He smiled and said ‘How could I forget?’ Then his eyes narrowed as if remembering more of the details. ‘That was you?’ I nodded, smiling. ‘Hmmm,’ he said, ‘I was pretty excited, wasn’t I?’ He tilted his head and raised his eye­brows, as if to ask a further question. I sensed that he was making an oblique reference to the private conversation we had had. ‘You had a right to be excited. So did we all,’ I observed. Satisfied with my response, he said, ‘Well, very nice to meet you,’ nodding and shaking my hand. He then turned back to his party and they were ushered to his table. I knew there was a wild world of differences between us, but I also knew the two of us shared a secret.” Freedom 7 spacecraft pre-launch activities Posted by admin in Freedom 7 on October 30, 2015 Mercury Spacecraft #7, which became known as Freedom 7, was delivered from the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation plant in St. Louis, Missouri to Hangar S at Cape Canaveral on 9 December 1960. Upon delivery, the instrumentation system and selected items of the communication system were removed from the capsule to be bench treated. During this bench-test period, the capsule underwent rework which included the cleaning up of dis­crepancy items deferred from St. Louis and making changes to the capsule that were required to be made prior to beginning systems tests. Systems test were begun as soon as all instrumentation and communications compo­nents were reinstalled in the capsule. These tests required a total of 46 days. During this period the electrical, sequential, instrumentation, communication, environmental, reaction control, and stabilization and control systems were individually tested. Included in the test of the environmental system were two runs in an altitude chamber with an astronaut installed in the capsule. At the completion of systems tests, another work period was scheduled in which the landing bag system was installed on the capsule. Following this work period, a simulated flight test was performed, followed by the installation of pyrotechnics and parachutes. The capsule was then weighed, balanced, and delivered to the launching pad to be mated with the Redstone booster. Nineteen days were spent on the launching pad, prior to launch, test­ing the booster and capsule systems, both separately, and as a unit. Also, practice inser­tions of an astronaut into the capsule were performed during this period. Simulated flight 1 with the booster was accomplished at the completion of systems tests on the launching pad. A change was then required in the booster circuitry which necessi­tated another simulated flight test (simulated flight 2). The capsule-booster combination was then ready for flight. The flight was postponed several days due to weather; however, this allowed time for replacing instrumentation components which were malfunctioning. A final simulated flight was then run (simulated flight 3). The capsule was launched two days after this final test. MODIFICATIONS MADE During capsule systems tests and work periods, both in Hangar S and on the launching pad, modifications were made to the capsule as a result of either a capsule malfunction or an additional requirement placed on the capsule. The most significant modifications made to Spacecraft 7 while at Cape Canaveral were as follows: (a) Manual sensitivity control and a power cut-off switch were added to the VOX (Voice – Operated Transmitter) relay. (b) A check valve was installed between the vacuum relief valve and the snorkel inflow valve. (c) The cabin pressure relief valve was replaced with one which would not open until it experienced an equivalent head of 15 inches of water. (d) Screens were added at the heat barriers upstream of the thrust chambers (downstream of the solenoid valves). (e) The high-thrust pitch and yaw thrusters were welded at the juncture between the thrust chambers and the heat barriers. (f) The cables to the horizon scanners in the antenna canister were wrapped with reflective tape to minimize radio-frequency (RF) interference from capsule commu­nications components. (g) The retro-interlock circuit was bypassed by installing a jumper plug in the amplifier-calibrator. (h) Permission relays were installed to both the capsule-adapter ring limit switches and the capsule-tower ring limit switches. (i) Capacitors were installed in the circuits to the orbit attitude, retro-jettison, and impact inertia arm time delay relays. (j) Capsule wiring was changed to extend the periscope at 21,000 feet. (k) The potting on the capsule adapter umbilical connectors was extended 0.75 inches from both connector ends and the connector was wrapped with asbestos and heat reflective tape. Also, the fairings over these connectors were cut away and a cover was added which provided more clearance between the fairings and the connectors. (l) The lower pressure bulkhead was protected from puncture damage that might result from heat sink recontact. Aluminum honeycomb was added, bolts reversed, and brackets with sharp protrusions were potted solidly with RTV-90 and plates between the brackets and the bulkhead. (m) Pitch indicator markings were changed from -43 to -34 degrees for retro-attitude indication « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 … 8 Next » Tweet Copyright © 2024 Aviation – airports, aircraft, helicopters … - Everything about aviation. Aviation News from around the world. Commercial and General Aviation, airports, airplanes, helicopters and other aircraft.