Category Freedom 7

Wayne Koons was a farm boy from Rice County, Kansas. After leaving from high school he attended Ottawa University in Ottawa, Kansas, where he received degrees in physics and mathematics before electing to join the U. S. Marine Corps and then opting to become a helicopter pilot. He recalls one day in 1959 while stationed in MCAS New River, North Carolina, when a squadron clerk ran up to him and said the commanding officer wanted to see him urgently.

“I was literally apprehensive as I went over to the hangar. The skipper told me they had had an enquiry about using helicopters to retrieve astronauts and spacecraft from the ocean. And I kept thinking, ‘What do you mean – astronauts?’” The term was new to him [3]. He later learned that he had been chosen for this task because he was the only pilot of 250 possible candidates to have a technical degree. Helicopters had been selected for the sea recovery operation because NASA’s engineers were not overly confident in the seaworthiness of the Mercury capsules, while flight surgeons were not confident about the physical shape that a person might be in after making a flight in space. “They wanted to get the astronaut and the spacecraft out of the water quickly,” Koons explained [4].

Lt. Koons was assigned as Project Officer to the retrieval squadron of the Space Task Group, and used his experience and technical abilities to assist in developing recovery techniques and procedures for the yet-to-be-built Mercury spacecraft. His duties included training the squadron pilots. Another part of his assignment involved the design and testing of a special reinforced loop on top of the capsule to enable the helicopter’s copilot to snag it using a long pole with a curved attachment on the end known as the “shepherd’s hook.”

As Wayne Koons described the procedure to the author, “The shepherd’s hook was attached to the lower end of a steel cable, which was engaged in the spacecraft lifting loop by the copilot using a long pole. The upper end of the cable was locked into the helicopter’s cargo hook before the helicopter lifted off from the ship. Lifting the spacecraft was accomplished by raising the helicopter. Once the spacecraft was on the ship’s padded skid, the helicopter cargo hook was opened, thus releasing the cable which stayed with the spacecraft.” [5]

In order to get the procedure right, countless training test flights were conducted using full-size representations of the Mercury spacecraft. In one test, a “boilerplate” cap­sule was dropped from 1,000 feet over Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. Once it had parachuted

into the water, the capsule was retrieved by the crew of a twin-engine helicopter using a “shepherd’s hook” in what NASA later described as a “successful” drop.

The squadron’s commanding officer informed Koons of the decision to have him serve as the lead pilot for this mission. “He asked me if I had a particular choice in copilot, and I said, ‘I sure do,’ because at that point I had been working regularly for several months with a copilot named George Cox. George and I just really got along well. We were kind of like twins. You know, we didn’t have to say everything that we communicated. We thought alike, worked well together, and were comfort­able with each other. And George was really eager to do it, enjoyed working the mission. So that was the basic set up.”

Eventually Koons found out that the retrieval would take place using an aircraft carrier as the destination. “We did some flight training right after we got aboard, and the Air Boss had set the flight deck up and put the skid with the mattresses on it up close to the bow. So we went off, and one of our helicopters dropped the boilerplate into the water, and then we went and picked it up and delivered it back to the ship.” When this proved a difficult operation visually for the pilot, the Air Boss rearranged his flight deck, shifting airplanes around and placing the skid on the rear of the flight deck. “So then when we tried it that way, it was much better, because I had the island in my field of view, and out the front windshield I could see the front part of the flight deck. So it made it much easier, a lot easier to maintain a good visual refer­ence while I was setting the thing down.” [6]

Along with Capt. Allen K. Daniel, Jr., Koons recovered the MR-1A capsule from the Atlantic on 19 December 1960 and safely deposited it aboard the aircraft carrier USS Valley Forge (CV-45).

Despite their intense training, the helicopter team often struggled with the payload capability of the aircraft balanced against the weight of the spacecraft. As Koons put it, “The dry weight of the spacecraft with astronaut was well over one ton. When the project started, the spacecraft weight was estimated to be about 1,800 pounds. As the design matured, the weight increased to the point that the complete retrieval weight for MR-3 approached 2,900 pounds. The helicopters were stripped of all unnecessary weight. The extra seats, the APU [auxiliary power unit], heater, some avionics, and the (only) life raft were removed for Mercury retrieval flights. Also, the fuel load was tailored. To explain: The downrange helicopters were tasked to go as far as 115 nauti­cal miles from the ship to retrieve a spacecraft. To accomplish this, the fuel load was normally set for a retrieval close aboard the ship. This reduced load gave the helicop­ter the lift margin needed to accomplish the capsule retrieval. If the spacecraft landed some distance from the ship, once the distance was known, the fuel load was adjusted to optimize the lift capability at the spacecraft, with adequate reserves for the return. The fuel calculations assumed the ship proceeded toward the spacecraft at its best speed after the launch of the helicopters.

“This scenario happened on the MR-2 flight. Range to the spacecraft was about 100 nautical miles. A big problem arose when the ship lost boiler power and went dead in the water after the launch of the helicopters, and we were ‘running on fumes’ by the time we actually got back to the ship with the spacecraft.” [7]

After dinner on Saturday night, a relaxed Shepard joined others on wooden benches at the open-air movie lot at the base for a screening of The Grass is Always Greener, a comedy starring Cary Grant.

The next morning, once again casually dressed and indistinguishable from several hundred other men at the air base, Shepard had breakfast with Grissom in the mess hall. By tacit consent, everyone on the base had agreed to allow him to simply go his way normally without any bustle or crowding. It would also be his last day of leisure on the off-shore refuge.

On Monday, under orders from the President, Shepard flew to Washington, D. C., along with the other astronauts. At Andrews AFB, where they landed in suburban Maryland at 9:33 a. m., Shepard was the last one off the airplane. Waiting to meet him at the foot of the ramp was his wife Louise, her parents Phil and Julia Brewer, his parents Alan and Renza, and his sister, Polly Sherman. There were hugs, kisses and hand­shakes before they were ushered over to a microphone set up nearby so that he could briefly address a crowd of almost 1,000 cheering people who had gathered to greet him. He thanked everyone at the base for their welcome and delivered a few words of encouragement prior to escorting his wife to the waiting helicopters that would quickly convey them to the south lawn of the White House and a reception by the President and First Lady at which he would receive NASA’s highest award, the Distinguished Service Medal. The only previous such medal had been awarded two years earlier to John W. Crowley for his 38-year contribution to the nation’s aircraft, spacecraft and missile programs.

The presentation ceremony took place on a specially built platform in the Rose Garden, just outside the White House, and was conducted in a very relaxed manner. Kennedy and Shepard shook hands more like college classmates than President and hero. Shepard was relaxed and easy during the moments of greeting before it began. As he remarked, “I thought last Friday was a thrilling day, but this surpasses it.” [12]

After the USS Lake Champlain had returned to Quonset Bay following the retrieval of Alan Shepard, his parents, Alan and Renza, were given a grand tour of the ship, which included a visit to the carrier’s hangar bay where a mockup of Freedom 7 was perched on the actual platform which had held their son’s spacecraft after recovery. (Photo courtesy of Larry Kreitzberg)

Alan and Louise Shepard meet the Kennedys, with Vice President Lyndon Johnson looking on. In center of the picture is NASA’s Public Affairs Officer, John ‘Shorty’ Powers. (Photo courtesy of Dean Conger/NASA)

With his fellow Mercury astronauts looking on, Shepard shakes hands with President Kennedy at the White House reception. (Photo courtesy of Dean Conger/NASA)

In his preamble, Kennedy said the nation was proud of Shepard and his fellow astro­nauts, noting that his flight was made under conditions of full publicity in a free society. The United States had “risked much and gained much,” he stated. This was meant as an emphatic reminder that the Soviet Union, operating in a closed society, was following a tradition of secrecy in its space program that stood in spectacular contrast to the methods endorsed by the American nation. The President also paid a grateful tribute to the other astronauts and to the NASA officials who had brought the agency together and carried it through to that point. They were key members of the team that made the flight such a great success. To the 500 dignitaries gathered in the Rose Garden, the President said, “We should give them all a hand.” And then, to distinguish the astronauts from the assembled bureaucrats, he jokingly described them as “the tanned and healthy ones – the others are Washington employees.”

Kennedy then read the NASA citation, which pointed out that Shepard’s flight “was an outstanding contribution to the advancement of human knowledge and space tech­nology and a demonstration of man’s capabilities in suborbital space flights.” He then described the medal as “a civilian award for a great civilian accomplishment.” [13]

At this point an air of informality took over, adding a special note of its own to the ceremony. During the presentation Kennedy fumbled for a moment, dropping the medal with its blue and white ribbon onto the wooden floor of the platform. But he quickly retrieved the medal and handed it to Shepard, saying he was proud to present “this decoration – which has gone from the ground up,” thereby creating a storm of laughter. But then, instead of following custom and pinning the medal on Shepard’s coat, Kennedy simply handed it over, saying, “Here.” After Shepard had responded in acknowledgement of the honor bestowed on him, Jacqueline Kennedy whispered to her husband that he ought to have pinned the medal onto the astronaut’s jacket. Taking it back from Shepard, the President quipped, “Let me pin it on; I’ll do my duty.” [14]

After the chimpanzees had become familiar with sitting in the steel chairs, Dittmer’s team began securing them in individually molded aluminum couches. These were smaller versions of contour couches that the astronauts would one day occupy in the Mercury spacecraft. Next, the animals were introduced to a device mounted across their lap that was called a psychomotor, a small machine specifically designed to test their reflexes and responses.

Apart from participating in tests of the spacecraft’s life support systems, one of the main tasks that the MR-2 chimpanzees had to master was pushing levers on the psychomotor in sequence throughout a brief suborbital flight, in order to prove that astronauts would be able to perform similar tasks satisfactorily.

There were three lights, with three levers directly below them on the device. One light was a red “continuous avoidance” signal which glowed all the time. Another was a white light that would illuminate when the test animal pushed the lever below. If they didn’t do this every twenty seconds a mild electric shock flowed through metal plates attached to the soles of their feet. The third light was blue, and it would glow for five seconds at irregular periods every two minutes. The lever beneath this had to be pushed before the light went out or the chimp would receive a light shock. On an actual mission, this test was set up to begin at liftoff and continue through the flight, transcending periods of high g-loads and acceleration, weightlessness, and reentry.

In the post-flight Review of Biomedical Systems for MR-3 Flight, it was noted by Stanley C. White, M. D., Chief of the Life Systems Division, Richard S. Johnston, his assistant, and Gerard J. Pesman of the Crew Equipment Branch of the Life Systems Division, that the chimpanzee program was designed to parallel that of the human program.

“Its primary goal was the qualification of the man support systems,” the report said. “Through this approach, the objective of flying first unmanned, followed by an animal flight, would give the logical sequence for the qualification of the spacecraft for manned flight.

Dressed for space, Ham demonstrates to his handler that he is ready to be considered for the MR-2 mission. (Photo: NASA)

Flight training for the chimpanzees involved learning to push levers in sequence with cueing illumination. (Photo: USAF)

“The chimpanzees considered for the Redstone program were thoroughly trained using the calculated flight dynamics. The centrifuge and heat chambers were used. The physiological training was incorporated with the psychomotor tasks to be done by the chimpanzee during flight. It was found that early in the training program the chim­panzee would cease working during the accelerative periods, and assume his normal

trained pattern promptly after the forces were released. However, subsequent training indicated that the chimpanzee could accept these new stresses and continue perfor­mance at a high level through all normal stress loads.” [5]

Throughout the chimpanzees’ training, a corps of veterinarians closely monitored their health and well-being, tracking their skeletal development with periodic exams and X-rays, as well as ensuring that they were free of any parasites. The animals also received regular checkups of their heart and muscular reflexes. Diet and dietary supplements were an important aspect of these tests, so the animals were fed small doses of antibiotics stirred into their favorite treat – liquid raspberry gelatin. In fact some of the primates enjoyed the diet and attention so much that they began to pack on excess weight, eventually washing them out of the program when they exceeded the specified limit of fifty pounds.

Even though Ham/Subject 65 trained well and was fast becoming one of the top candidates for the MR-2 shot, there were many physical, stress and readiness factors involved in the final selection – which was to be made on the eve of the mission. In preparation for MR-2, six of the most promising candidates along with 20 Holloman scientists and technical personnel were flown to Cape Canaveral on 2 January 1961 in order to acclimatize the chimps to a change in environment and to undergo final prepa­ration for the flight, scheduled for the end of that month. Here they would be given 29 days of intense training under the supervision of Maj. Dan Mosely, DVM, in charge of Holloman’s vast Aeronautical Branch.

Facilities at the Cape for quartering, training, and preparing the six chimpanzees consisted of seven specially designed trailers in a fenced-off enclosure adjacent to Hangar S, in which the astronauts’ quarters were situated. To prevent any possible spread of disease amongst the animals they were isolated in separate cages. One of the trailers was a combined clinical and surgical facility for physical examinations, clini­cal laboratory analysis, minor surgery, and treatment of illness or injury. It was also used for the installation of biosensors, donning the restraint garment, and the placement of each chimpanzee in its personalized couch.

According to a report on MR-2 operations compiled post-flight by Capt. Norman Stringely and Maj. Mosely of the Air Force, and Charles Wheelwright from NASA,

“Five practice countdowns were conducted by the medical preparation team for the MR-2 flight. They consisted of preparing the subject and couch, and proceeding up the gantry. The couch was either placed outside or inserted into the spacecraft and connected to the spacecraft environmental control system and electrical system. One countdown was for a telemetry check, one for a spacecraft-pressure check, one for a radio-frequency compatibility test, and two were simulated flights.” [6]

Much to the frustration of the media, waiting for news of the astronaut selected to make the first space flight that year, NASA would only announce that of the original seven, only three – John Glenn, Gus Grissom and Alan Shepard – had been selected as prime candidates for the first Mercury-Redstone mission, and the name of the man who would fly would not be revealed until nearer the time. The other two, as well as the remaining four men, would fly later space shots.

For Glenn and Grissom, and particularly Shepard, the training was stepped up to prepare them for that first, crucial flight. Shepard would find the pace particularly grueling at times.

“Early in 1961, the Cape, as it was simply called, was the most exciting place in the country. It was also a very tough place to work. Despite the glowing press reports about how well things were going with the astronauts and the Mercury operations team, the reality was that conflict was a part of everyday life at Cape Canaveral. Arduous project schedules and the long wait to get up into space made us feel stifled and resentful.”

And then there was the matter of a primate making a suborbital flight ahead of an astronaut.

“The irony of playing second fiddle to a chimpanzee was particularly galling to us,” Shepard noted. “NASA had decided to send a chimp into space before sending me. I protested again and again, but NASA insisted the little ape go first. The agency meant well. But all I could think about were Russian boosters rolling to their pads for the first manned space flight.

“There were other frictions too. At the Cape I spent most of my time in a ‘proce­dures trainer.’ This was a replica of the actual spaceship that would boost me more than one hundred miles into space. It also duplicated the severe semi-supine flight position, with the pilot lying on his back, legs vertical to the knees and then dropped down so that he was shaped like a squared-off pretzel. No one liked the trainer. It was like taking a straight-backed chair, placing it on its back, and then ‘sitting’ in it. This is where the astronaut trained to reach all his instruments and controls until he could go through every motion of his scheduled flight with his eyes closed and never miss hitting the right button or lever.

“By late January events were coming down to the wire. As flight time neared, the practical joking that had helped keep us all sane faded away. A serious tone settled over the launch, support, flight, and recovery teams. Redstone, the booster rocket, was working well, and I was scheduled to be launched in about six more weeks.” [33]

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.