Category Liberty Bell 7

The Mercury-Redstone 2 (MR-2) ballistic flight profile called for the Mercury space­craft to be boosted to an altitude of approximately 115 statute miles, achieve a period of weightlessness of around 4.5 minutes and a range of approximately 290 statute miles. This time, however, there would be a living creature on board – a freckle-faced, 37-pound chimpanzee that came to be universally known as Ham.

The MR-2 flight was intended to be the final test mission of the Mercury-Redstone launch vehicle, during which a live subject closely related to humans would prove that an astronaut could function without undue difficulty in a weightlessness environment. If successful, the next mission was planned to carry one of the Mercury astronauts. Ham (an acronym drawn from Holloman Aero Medical Research Laboratory, where he got his flight training) was a chimpanzee of normally good nature and alertness, and would be the heaviest animal to be sent into space to that time, either by the Americans or the Soviet Union.

Spacecraft No. 5 had been selected for the mission, and it was fitted with six new systems that had not featured on previous flights: an environmental control system, an attitude stabilization control system, live retrorockets, a voice communications sys­tem, a “closed loop” abort sensing system, and a pneumatic landing bag.

With Ham securely sealed within a special life-support container inside the capsule, Spacecraft No. 5 lifted off from Launch Pad 5 on 31 January 1961, and landed in the Atlantic Ocean 16 minutes 39 seconds later. While essentially successful, several problems had plagued the flight. The Redstone booster over-accelerated, resulting in an earlier than expected depletion of liquid oxygen. This initiated a signal that caused the escape tower to pull the capsule free just a few seconds before it would have released normally. The overall result was that the spacecraft flew higher and over a longer range than anticipated.

Despite these problems, Ham stoically completed his assigned tasks. The space­craft splashed down near the Bahamas, landing out of sight of the waiting recovery forces. Some 12 minutes later the first automatically generated signals were received,

establishing that the spacecraft was about 60 miles from the nearest recovery ship. A search plane sighted the capsule soon after, floating upright in the ocean. When helicopters arrived they reported that the capsule was now tilted on its side, partly submerged, and seemed to be taking on water. It was later found that on impact with the water the lowered beryllium heat shield had bounced up against the bottom of the capsule, punching two holes in the titanium pressure bulkhead before tearing free. An open snorkel valve was also allowing sea water to enter the capsule. Although Ham was secured within his airtight container, it might easily have ended up as his coffin at the bottom of the Atlantic.

A helicopter crew finally latched onto the spacecraft and delivered it to the deck of USS Donner (LSD-20). When the spacecraft was opened, Ham appeared to be in good condition despite a little bewilderment at the attention and some wobbliness in his legs. Apart from that he was quite okay; he passed an onboard examination with flying colors and his appetite was certainly unaffected when he hungrily devoured some fresh fruit.

John King of the space agency’s Public Information Office at the Cape summed up Ham’s 420-mile ride through space. “Ham was going along on a pretty hectic trip, when, just one second before the end of thrust, the Redstone was burning too fast so the automatic abort system functioned. Ham got an immediate jolt of about 17G. We have a movie of it all, and he wasn’t too happy when this occurred, but the amazing thing was that he griped a little, then went right back to work pushing his little levers. It was a tremendous break for the medical people. They got excellent data from this test.”40

With many malfunctions occurring during the flight of chimpanzee Ham, it was pru­dently decided that the Mercury-Redstone combination was still not ready for the human passenger planned for MR-3. Despite the protests of many, the first human-tended flight was postponed pending a final Mercury-Redstone booster development flight, desig­nated MR-BD.

Although the Soviet Union’s space program was a largely unknown factor back then, in all likelihood their space chiefs would have attempted to launch a cosmonaut ahead of the United States, regardless of which Redstone flight was to carry the first American astronaut. Barring a pad explosion, the Soviets would have raced to beat an advertised launch date for the MR-3 mission, even if it meant launching the day before. They took risks, but their rocket was much more reliable as a launcher than its American counterparts. In retrospect, the decision to insert the MR-BD flight into the schedule could have ultimately cost America the prized goal of sending the first man into space, and caused a lot of consternation for the astronauts and other program participants.

Many felt that Wernher von Braun had been a little overcautious in ordering a pri­mate test flight, and then an additional unmanned suborbital test flight prior to com­mitting America to a manned launch. The MR-BD mission introduced after Ham’s troubled ride helped to push the first flight of an astronaut into May – and allowed Soviet space scientists a little extra time to prepare for their own surprise space spectacular.

As a consequence of the problems encountered on the MR-2 mission, steps were taken to correct the problems on the now-added MR-BD flight, which would test the effectiveness of all the modifications that resulted. Carrying a boilerplate Mercury capsule loaded with a mannequin astronaut and an inert escape system, Redstone MRLV-5 roared off Launch Pad 5 at 12:30 a. m. on 24 March. With the spacecraft remaining attached as planned to the Redstone throughout the suborbital flight, the entire assembly followed the desired trajectory, achieving a peak altitude of 113.5 statute miles and a downrange distance of 307 statute miles.

This time there were no plans to recover the booster or spacecraft, which, still attached, plunged into the Atlantic Ocean at the end of a near-perfect mission. The whole operation had gone so well that there was no longer any reason to delay the much-anticipated MR-3 mission early in May.

Everything was now set for an as-yet-unnamed American astronaut to become the first person to fly into space.

However, on 12 April 1961 it was a Russian cosmonaut named Yuri Gagarin who grabbed that honor and glory with a single-orbit flight around the Earth. NASA, and the American people, were stunned and mortified. Perhaps none more so than Navy Cdr. Alan Shepard, who had earlier been secretly chosen to make the first flight of a human being into space.

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In July 1961 all seven astronauts visited the McDonnell plant in St. Louis, Missouri. Back row, from left: Gus Grissom, James S. McDonnell, Alan Shepard and Scott Carpenter. Front row: Walter Burke (Vice President, McDonnell Aircraft), Gordon Cooper, Deke Slayton, Wally Schirra and John Glenn. (Photo: McDonnell Aircraft Corporation)

The weather at Cape Canaveral on Tuesday morning was overcast but the engineers and scientists once again busied themselves preparing the Redstone. By this time the beaches and nearby roads were lined with hundreds of tourists anxiously waiting for the launch spectacle. Grissom and Glenn took advantage of the postponement to get in a little running and to study a map of geographical features that Grissom might be able to see while looking down on Earth from an altitude of 115 miles. Grissom then grabbed a fishing pole, strode to the beach and caught a four-pound bass – which he threw back. Afterwards he returned to the business of getting ready for his flight the next day.

Confident that the weather would be fine by launch time, NASA decided Tuesday night to go ahead with plans to send Grissom into space the next morning. Informed sources said rain squalls which had drenched the rocket firing center late in the day would move to the north by early morning, clearing the skies.

Grissom said he watched an episode of The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp on tele­vision that evening before going to bed at nine o’clock.

“I slept like a brick for four hours and woke up wondering what time it was and what the weather was like. Just then Bill Douglas came in and sat down on the bed. He just sat there for a few moments, but when he saw me looking at him he said simply, ‘Well, get up.’”21

After being told the one remaining weather hazard was an area of rain moving across the Gulf of Mexico, which the weather people expected would break up on the west coast of Florida, Grissom was told that the count had been pushed ahead by an hour to try and beat the weather. The launch was now provisionally set for 7:00 a. m.

“The schedule allotted me 30 minutes for breakfast, another 30 minutes for a short physical [examination], 10 minutes to fasten on the electronic sensors which would report my pulse, temperature and breathing rate back to the Control Center, 30 minutes to put on my pressure suit, then 30 minutes to get into the van and ride out to the pad.”22

Apparently someone forgot to pass on word about the earlier launch time to the cook, as breakfast was not ready at 1:45 a. m. as intended under the revised schedule. A deci­sion was made to conduct the physical exam first, and then tackle breakfast. Grissom donned his bathrobe and entered the medical room where Bill Douglas was waiting. As he subsequently recalled, there was nothing unusual about the preflight examination except that Douglas was concerned about the astronaut’s blood pressure count.

“It can’t be this low,” he said over and over again. Grissom, calm and composed, suggested with a laugh that he could boost it up a bit for the records if he wanted, but Douglas remained amazed at the unexpectedly low reading.

“I think you ought to be just a little bit excited,” he said with a smile and a shake of his head. Next, Grissom had a short session with NASA’s consultant psychiatrist George Ruff, who wanted to explore the astronaut’s thoughts.

“He made me recite my feelings, and then we played some little games with words and numbers – to make sure I was completely sane, I guess.”23

Grissom asked that his wife, Betty, and other members of his family be advised by telephone of the advance in the launch schedule. Breakfast was then shared with Glenn and Scott Carpenter, along with NASA Operations Director Walt Williams, fol­lowing which Grissom had biomedical sensors attached to his body. To ensure that these were correctly positioned, Grissom (like the other astronauts) had a two-milli­meter-diameter tattooed dot at each of the four electrode sites. Then he suited up with the assistance of suit technician Joe Schmitt, and was ready for a pressure check of the suit at 3:10 a. m. Once this had been completed, Grissom boarded the big white trans­fer van outside Hangar S at 4:15 for the ride over to Launch Pad 5.

At the pad, everyone remained inside the air-conditioned vehicle as Grissom waited for word to step out and make his way to the gantry elevator. At one stage Deke Slayton entered the van to give Grissom a final weather briefing, which was not all that positive because cirrus clouds were moving in and thickening as they approached the Cape. However the local weather reports suggested the skies might be clear enough at launch time to proceed. At 5:00 a. m., word arrived that Grissom could make his way over to the gantry elevator, for the ride up to the spacecraft on the third gantry level, some 65 feet above the ground. The skies were clear over the launch area.

“I stepped out of the van, took a quick look at the tall, white Redstone, and headed for the elevator,” Grissom later said. “Just then all the men working around the pad started to applaud. I must admit this choked me up a little. It was a darn fine feeling, as I looked down and saw them staring up at me, that I had all these people pulling for me.”24

On arrival at the third level Grissom walked across the gantry platform and at 5:38 a. m., after some preliminary procedures, he began to squeeze his 155-pound frame into the capsule with the assistance of John Glenn. Once inside, Joe Schmitt hooked him up to the capsule’s air and communications systems and strapped him tightly into the contour couch. After shaking hands with some of the gantry crew, Grissom started to thank Glenn, who unexpectedly handed him a note which read “Have a smooth apogee,

Gus, and do good work. See you at GBI [Grand Bahama Island].” Grissom laughed at the reference to his own brief motto delivered at the Convair plant, and after he had shaken Glenn’s hand the hatch was bolted in place. He was now alone inside Liberty

Bell 7, with very little do as he waited for the firing order. Noticing that his window was a little smeared with fingerprints from well-wishers who had pressed up against the glass, he reported this to Guenter Wendt and was assured that it would be wiped clean. One technician who happened to overhear this exchange joked with Grissom they would be sure to install windscreen wipers on the capsule before its next launch.

Eventually the gantry was withdrawn and the Redstone stood alone, poised for launch and pointed at the sky.

The countdown clicked along to within 10 minutes, 30 seconds of firing. Then NASA officials called a halt to study the weather situation. The ‘hold’ dragged on and the count was recycled to 30 minutes. Finally at 9:00 a. m., two hours after the sched­uled time, the reluctant but necessary decision was made to postpone the shot because the heavy, high-level cloud cover was too dense to permit camera coverage of the first critical moments of rocket flight and photographic tracking of the rocket. The launch was rescheduled for 6:00 a. m., Friday. A bad guess on the weather had led to the scrub. A two-day postponement was required because the Redstone had to be purged of its fuels, dried out, cleaned, and checked for contamination.

Grissom had sweated out 3 hours, 57 minutes in the cramped capsule, but as he climbed out was still able to muster a weak smile. “I was disappointed, however, after spending four hours in the couch. And I did not look forward to spending another 48 hours on the Cape.

“But I felt sure we would get it off the next time around. And we did.”25

In a later report for the waiting media, Drs Laning and Strong stated that on arrival, Grissom had immediately received a preliminary physical examination, and blood, urine and other samples had been taken for later analysis. Dr. Strong told reporters that, “Our shipboard examination finds no abnormalities. He is in excellent spirits except that he feels unhappy about the capsule. Both Dr. Robert Laning of the Navy and I are pleased that he is in excellent shape. All tests and observations are within normal limits.”34

Dr. Laning added that Grissom was in just as good a physical shape as Shepard was after his flight, “except that he was a little more tired after the swim.” Laning pointed out that Grissom had swallowed a considerable amount of sea water and was suffering a slight soreness in the throat as a result. He said the astronaut reported he was feeling “a bit shaky” when he first came onboard ship, but soon relaxed and ate a second breakfast that day of orange juice, fried eggs and bacon. The doctor stated that Grissom’s pulse rate was 160 when he first came aboard but it shortly dropped to a near normal 100. “He said he had a thrilling ride,” Laning told the assembled report­ers. “He is feeling well.” Laning also said that Grissom asked for a drink of water as soon as he entered the debriefing. “Fresh water, that is,” grinned Laning as the report­ers jotted down this little gem of information.35

Once the initial excitement of Grissom’s arrival on the Randolph had died down, and while the astronaut was undergoing his preliminary physical examination, Jim Lewis made an official report to the ship’s skipper, Harry Cook, on his own part in the recovery effort.

Meanwhile, mechanics inspecting Lewis’ helicopter were puzzled, having failed to find anything amiss with the engine. It was later suspected that the chip detector light might have been triggered by a stray metal flake that had somehow worked its way into the engine’s oil sump.

Asked what actions he might have taken if the indicator light had not illuminated while he was struggling to raise Liberty Bell 7 out of the water, Lewis responded, “I would have waited and just hovered with the spacecraft, holding it under water until the recovery carrier arrived. Of course, if that happened, figuring out how to bring the spacecraft aboard the carrier would have been a challenge.”36

Overall, Jim Lewis recalls that everything he experienced onboard the Randolph after he landed was “very businesslike and professional because that is how one is trained in the military. Gus understood all that occurred and appreciated the efforts that were made to bring [the capsule] back. While we all would have preferred to have the spacecraft, what resulted, given the circumstances, represented excellent results.”37 Following Grissom’s physical tests and debriefing it was time for the astronaut and the Marine recovery pilots to board a waiting twin-engine S-2F Tracker airplane and proceed to Grand Bahama Island, where the nation’s newest hero would undergo a far more extensive medical examination and provide a comprehensive account of his flight, along with his recollections of the post-splashdown dramas. At the island facil­ity the four Marine helicopter pilots would also discuss with Grissom and NASA officials what they had observed from above Liberty Bell 7, and attempt to figure out what had led to the loss of the spacecraft.

As he strode over to the flight line with Capt. Cook heading for the S-2F Tracker, Gus was talkative and grinning, and took a moment to wave up to Rear Adm. John E. Clark, who was standing on the bridge. As he reached the airplane, two bells were rung for the attention of all on the carrier and the loud speaker called out, “Captain, United States Air Force departing” – an honor normally only reserved for admirals.

There was another pleasant surprise in store for Grissom courtesy of Capt. Cook as Lewis and Reinhard buckled themselves into two seats in the rear of the airplane. Following a spontaneous request from Cook, and with the agreement of the chief pilot, the Navy co-pilot had happily relinquished his right-hand seat to Grissom.

As Cook shook Grissom’s hand he gave him this news. As Cook later observed, while Grissom was clearly pleased to make it safely onto the Randolph after his recovery, “he got almost as much thrill… when I invited him to act as co-pilot on the catapult launch of the plane to take him to [Grand Bahama Island].”38

The Navy pilot in command on that brief flight was John Barteluce, who, at the age of 90, still hasn’t lost his lifetime fascination for aviation. In fact, these days he is the oldest crew member of Coast Guard Auxiliary Flotilla 10-01, whose airplanes fly security patrols each day, extending from the Canadian border to the Manasquan Inlet. “I’m going to go on as long as I can,” he told an interviewer in 2012.

Grissom left the carrier by plane for Grand Bahama Island just 77 minutes after stepping onto the deck from the recovery helicopter.

When asked to comment on the events of 21 July 1961, Barteluce told the author, “Needless to say I was happy to be chosen to fly Grissom from our carrier to Grand Bahama Island. Gus was elated that I asked him to be my co-pilot and experience his first and only takeoff from an aircraft carrier.

“It was a fairly short flight and the conversation was mostly about his asking me about my background. I told him that I was a fighter pilot flying F4F Wildcats from the baby carrier USS Nehenta Bay [CVE-74] during World War II.”

One of Barteluce’s most prized possessions is a Dean Conger photograph of him flying alongside Grissom on their way to Grand Bahama Island, which the astronaut later signed for him.39

Meanwhile, a press conference was being held at NASA Headquarters at which officials were discussing the loss of the spacecraft. Mercury Operations Director Walt Williams told reporters that the only significant records of the mission lost were two

color-camera films of Grissom and the instrument panel taken during the flight. They showed the movements of his hands and facial expressions, and might have assisted in improving the positioning of some instruments for later missions.

Robert Gilruth, director of the STG, added that most of the desired information was received and recorded through telemetry. He was quick to point out that despite a dramatic and valiant effort to save the capsule, “the vital part of the cargo – the astro­naut – was saved.” This sentiment was backed up by another NASA official, who said “We’ve got only one Gus, but we’ve got plenty of space capsules.”

With questions about the end of the flight still to be answered, Gilruth decided to withhold his planned announcement that the MR-4 flight concluded the suborbital seg­ment of NASA’s $400 million man-in-space program, despite there being two subor­bital flights listed on the original schedule. He had been expected to say that if everything had worked perfectly, that there was no longer any need to risk the other five astronauts on short but dangerous flights, and the agency would instead start to insert astronauts into orbit using the 300,000 pounds of thrust delivered by the Atlas booster.40

Amazingly, the Mercury flight of Gus Grissom had attracted far less attention than that of Alan Shepard just two months earlier. In one serendipitous exercise, the KWK radio station in St. Louis selected telephone numbers at random on the day of the flight and asked thirty people who answered, “Who is Virgil Grissom?” Eleven cor­rectly identified him as the latest astronaut; thirteen said they didn’t know; three said he was a disc jockey; one thought he was a radio announcer. Another believed him the former tenant of her apartment, “because I got some of his mail.” And one sleepy woman answered, “With this hangover, I couldn’t care less!”41

During the Mercury program, in the same way in which service pilots personalized a particular aircraft by giving it a nickname, the astronauts had been permitted to name their capsule and use the name as the official call sign for the mission. Much to their annoyance this custom was rescinded by NASA during the Gemini program, when mis­sion managers decided to utilize the mission name as the official spacecraft call sign.

An obstinate Grissom decided to give his Gemini spacecraft an unofficial name. At first, he and John Young toyed with the idea of an American Indian name, but then he read that the musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown was nearing the end of its Broadway run, and this gave him the idea for a humorous repost to the splashdown drama on his previous flight.

“I’d been accused of being more than a little sensitive about the loss of my Liberty Bell 7, and it struck me that the best way to squelch this idea was to kid [about] it. And from what I knew about our Gemini spacecraft, I felt certain it would indeed be unsinkable. So John and I agreed that we’d christen our baby Molly Brown”

While some sympathetic NASA officials found the name quite amusing, others certainly didn’t, and he was told to think of something more respectable. When he responded with “Sure… how about the Titanic?” it became quite evident that this determined astronaut was not going to yield without a fight. A sense of resignation finally set in, and the officials partially relented. The spacecraft to be flown on the Gemini-Titan 3 mission would thereafter be known – unofficially – as the Molly Brown.

But this would be the last time a Gemini crew was given any sort of latitude to christen a spacecraft, although they were allowed to design personalized shoulder patches. As well, all succeeding Gemini flights would be identified using Roman numerals, starting with Gemini-Titan IV (GT-IV).

The post-flight medical examination onboard the carrier was brief and without incident. The loss of the spacecraft was a great blow to me, but I felt that I had completed the flight and recovery with no ill effects.

The post-flight medical debriefing at the Grand Bahama Island installation was thor­ough and complete. The demands on me were not unreasonable.

CONCLUSIONS

From the pilot’s point of view the conclusions reached from the second U. S. manned sub­orbital flight are as follows:

(1) The manual proportional control system functioned adequately on this flight. The sys­tem is capable of controlling the retro-fire accurately and safely. The roll axis is under­powered and causes some difficulty. The rate command system functioned very well during this flight. All rates were damped satisfactorily, and it is easy to hold and maintain the attitudes with the rate command system. If the rate of fuel consumption that was experienced on this flight is true in all cases, it would not be advisable to use the rate control system during ordinary orbital flights to control attitudes. It should be used only for retro-fire and reentry. The autopilot functioned properly with the possi­ble exception of the five seconds of damping immediately after separation. This period is so brief that it was impossible to determine the extent of any damping. The turn­around maneuver in the pitch and yaw axes was approximately as predicted, but the roll axis was slow to respond.

(2) The pilot’s best friend on the orbital flight is going to be the window. Out this window, I feel he will be able to ascertain accurately his position at all times. I am sure he will be able to see stars on the dark side and possibly on the daylight side, with a little time to adapt the eyes. The brighter stars and planets will certainly be visible.

(3) Spacecraft rates and oscillations are very easy to ascertain by looking at the horizon and ground check points. I feel that drift rates will be easy to distinguish on an orbital flight when there is time to concentrate on specific points outside the window.

(4) Sounds of pyrotechnics, control nozzles, and control solenoids are one of the pilot’s best cues as to what is going on in the spacecraft and in the sequencing. The sounds of posigrades, retro-rockets, and mortar firing are so prominent that these become the primary cues that the event has occurred. The spacecraft telelight panel becomes of secondary importance and merely confirms that a sequence has happened on time. The sequence panel’s main value is telling the pilot when an event should have occurred and has not.

(5) Vibrations throughout the flight were of a low order and were not disturbing. The buf­feting at maximum dynamic pressure and a Mach number of 1 on launch was mild and did not interfere with pilot functions. Communications and vision were satisfactory throughout this period. The mild buffeting on reentry does not interfere with any pilot functions.

(6) Communications throughout the flight were satisfactory. Contact was maintained with some facility at all times. There was never any requirement to repeat a transmission.

(7) During the flight, all spacecraft systems appeared to function properly. There was no requirement to override any system. Every event occurred on time and as planned.

Subsequent to the inception of America’s man-in-space programs, Maxime Allan Faget was proving to be a key figure in preparing for this bold new venture, which eventually led to his appointment on 5 November 1958 as Chief of the Flight Systems Division of the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Faget had attended secondary schools in San Francisco and later trained in mechani­cal engineering at San Francisco Junior College. In 1943 he received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Louisiana State University. Following gradua­tion he spent three years in the U. S. Navy, serving aboard submarines for the remainder of World War II.

Post-war, Faget and his former college roommate Guy Thibodaux decided to seek employment together, which led them in 1946 to contact another university friend named Paul Purser, then working at the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton, Virginia, which was part of the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA). This was the forerunner of NASA, then based at Langley Field in Virginia. NACA, founded in 1915, was a civilian agency dedicated to aeronautical research and development.

Employed as research scientists by Purser, Faget and Thibodaut were first assigned to Langley’s Applied Materials and Physics Division working on rocket propulsion, and were then transferred to the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division (PARD). Here, working under division chief Dr. Robert R. Gilruth, Faget was involved in developing engineering concepts on several projects, including the design of a complete ramjet flight test vehicle. He was also a member of the preliminary design team for the hyper­sonic X-15 research aircraft. Through his prolific talent and determination he was quickly advanced to head the Performance Development branch, where he conceived of and proposed the development of the one-man spacecraft that would ultimately become the Mercury capsule.

Like Faget, design engineer Caldwell C. Johnson from Langley’s Technical Services Department enjoyed building elaborately constructed model aircraft – a skill which had been instrumental in landing him the job at NACA straight out of high school. His technical acumen and drawing skills later translated Faget’s ideas into working machines. There had been considerable debate in 1956 and 1957 as to whether the United States should attempt to advance the X series of rocket planes in order to carry pilots into space, or whether flying in space would require an entirely new concept. During their lunch breaks Faget, Thibodaux and Caldwell would discuss this at length with others at Langley, and they soon formulated the idea of placing a pilot into an enlarged nose cone atop a rocket and launching him on a ballistic trajec­tory. No one could find a reason why this would not work if a functional parachute system could be developed, as well as braking rockets to bring the spacecraft back through the atmosphere. It was only a concept, and Johnson sketched out a few pro­spective nose cone capsules, but it never got much further than idle chatter among some enthusiastic propulsion and design engineers.

Gus Grissom never seemed to fit the archetypal American hero mold. A stocky and somewhat stubby man who stood at 5 feet 7 inches, he looked more like the neighborhood motor mechanic or television repairman than an astronaut. But he excelled as an Air Force test pilot and as a Mercury astronaut, becoming an integral part of NASA’s drive to the Moon. While he may not have been the most sociable or loquacious member of the astro­naut group, he was well respected by them. “Gus was a very bright young man who didn’t have a lot to say most of the time,” fellow astronaut Scott Carpenter told the author in 2013, “but when he said something it was of great value and always worth listening to.”1

It was Friday, 21 July 1961, a morning that was almost a carbon copy of Wednesday prior to scrubbing the launch due to poor weather conditions. For the second time in less than 48 hours, Gus Grissom removed his protective overshoes and was carefully assisted into Liberty Bell 7 at 3:58 a. m. (EST), hoping to keep his delayed date with history.

A MORNING FILLED WITH OPTIMISM

The U. S. Weather Bureau meteorologists had once again been keeping a close eye on the weather, and especially the areas of low pressure. They kept NASA’s flight director informed about conditions not only around the Cape, but also in the landing area. A weather briefing had been held at 2:30 a. m. that morning, and the forecast was positive. Space agency officials noted patches of cloud high above the Cape, but were optimistic the weather would stay good enough to permit the launch.

Everyone who had spoken with Grissom that morning said he, too, was optimistic about his chances and was in excellent spirits. This time, however, there seemed to be a little added urgency attached to the pre-flight launch preparations; it was almost as if the scientists and technicians were unsure if their luck would hold along with the weather.

Grissom was awakened by Bill Douglas at 1:05 a. m. after a little less than four hours of sleep and given the good news that the weather looked good for a launch. Twenty minutes later he sat down with Douglas and Scott Carpenter for breakfast. There was no delay with the meal this time, which was a virtual duplicate of the one he had on Wednesday prior to being driven to the launch pad for the flight that never was.

This time, as Grissom later noted, the buildup to launch time was proceeding well. At 1:55 Bill Douglas began a last full-scale physical to ensure the astronaut had not contracted any last-minute difficulties making him unfit for what would be an often grueling experience. There was another brief session with psychiatrist George

Ruff, who found there was no alarming level of anxiety in the astronaut. In fact, for Grissom this was almost part of yet another routine procedure that he had endured many times throughout his training and flight preparation. Ruff easily passed Grissom as mentally fit and ready to go. The biomedical sensors which would monitor the astronaut’s heartbeat, respiration and body temperature during the brief flight were attached at 2:25.

By 2:55, with the able assistance of Joe Schmitt, Grissom had worked his way into the close-fitting, rubberized and silver-coated space suit. Within ten minutes the suit had been inflated and checked for any possible leaks. No problems were encountered.

This time, Deke Slayton visited Grissom at his Hangar S quarters to brief him on the weather, the state of the rocket, and the preparedness of the capsule. Normally this briefing would have been carried out en route to the launch pad, but everyone was upbeat about the launch going on time. Grissom then hefted his portable air condi­tioner, which was known as the “Black Box” and, followed by Bill Douglas, made his way down the stairs to the exit door on the ground floor. Although his mouth was covered by the lower part of his helmet, he could be seen smiling through the open face plate at an assembly of about 60 space agency and air force personnel, photogra­phers, and other spectators. He twice waved his left hand to acknowledge greetings. One NASA official called out, “Good luck,” and Grissom responded with an airy “Hi.”

Riding in the transfer van at a sedate 15 miles an hour, Grissom reached the pad, three miles away, at 3:51 a. m. Two days earlier he had spent nearly an hour inside the van undergoing final briefings, but this time the door swung open in only a few min­utes and Grissom, still clutching his air conditioner, cautiously descended the four steps and made his way to the gantry elevator several strides away.

Apart from a quick glance up at the towering Redstone rocket, Grissom looked straight ahead as he walked to the elevator in the peculiar bow-legged gait caused by the tight fit of his suit. This time there was no patter of applause from the helmeted

workers on the pad. It was almost as if everyone was holding back their enthusiasm this time until the rocket actually lifted off. Before entering the elevator, however, Grissom exchanged a few light-hearted remarks with some of the men clustered near the elevator cage. Then, with everyone aboard, the elevator rose swiftly up the side of the red steel launch tower. It was a tight squeeze, with the space-suited Grissom, Douglas and other observers making the trip up to the capsule level 65 feet above the ground. The sky above them was dark, but a few stars were evident. Below, the pad area was bathed in dazzling white light from three banks of searchlights, all of them firmly aimed at the rocket.

Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper always seemed to live on the edge. Not just the edge of space and adventure, but in testing the patience of his NASA bosses. He loved flying, and his enthusiasm was never more evident than when he finally heard that his pal Gus Grissom had successfully completed his suborbital trip into space.

Cooper was flying an F-106 chase plane over the Cape that day, and he wanted to show the officials below how he felt about his astronaut colleague’s safe return from the perils of space. When information was passed to him that the MR-4 mission had been a success he barreled across the Cape, over the heads of newsmen assembled at the press platform, then swung around for a second pass over the area. This time around he performed a slow victory roll, leading NASA’s somewhat bemused Public Affairs spokesman Lt. Col. ‘Shorty’ Powers to announce, “In case there is any doubt in anyone’s mind, that was a fellow astronaut who just came by in that F-106, celebrating.”1

Over several months, Grissom and Young practically lived with their spacecraft at the McDonnell plant, spending scores of hours training in simulators, memorizing every switch, knob, light, dial, and handle until they could quickly and instinctively find each one in moments.

As the first astronaut to fly both Mercury and Gemini spacecraft, Grissom offered a comparison between the two vehicles.

“The most important difference in the Gemini spacecraft is the amount of control the pilot exercises over all the functions. Gemini is the first true pilot’s spacecraft. Although Mercury was handled in flight a good deal by manual control, it was designed essentially as a fully automatic machine with manual control capability as a backup to the automatic systems. We have proven that we can contribute a great deal to the successful accomplishment of the mission by controlling the spacecraft, but we had to override the automatic system to make our point.

“The original concept in manned Mercury flights was that the pilot would go along as an observer since his capabilities in space were unknown at that time. Gemini, on the other hand, demands pilot response in all its functions. The pilot must decide whether to abort a mission during the boost phase, he separates the spacecraft from the booster, he steers the craft from one orbit to another, he [does the] rendezvous with the Agena capsule, he must decide when and where to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere, he must control the reentry, and then guide the spacecraft to a safe landing at a prede­termined point. Gemini will be a pilot-controlled operational spacecraft, not just a research and development vehicle.

“The escape system on the Gemini is a rocket ejection seat similar to that used on high-performance aircraft. Either the command pilot or the pilot can eject both seats simultaneously by pulling a lanyard located between his legs. There is no automatic sensing device to eject the seats. The pilot has to make his own decision to either eject and abort the mission or ride it out.”4

Gemini 3 (GT-3) was always planned as a shakedown trial of the new spacecraft, and although it was only ever designated a three-orbit flight, GT-3 was nevertheless a crucial mission chock-full of tests and other activities right through to splashdown.

Its prime objectives were to demonstrate manned orbital flight in the spacecraft; to demonstrate and evaluate the capability to maneuver the spacecraft; to demonstrate and evaluate the operation of the worldwide tracking network; to evaluate the performance of onboard systems; and to recover the spacecraft and evaluate the recovery system.

At 9:24 a. m. (EST) on 23 March 1965, Grissom and Young were launched into orbit. According to the transcript, on liftoff CapCom Gordon Cooper even gave the spacecraft’s name his own blessing by saying, “You’re on your way, Molly Brown.” To which Grissom responded, “Yeah, man… oh, man!” At launch, Grissom had both gloved hands gripping the D-ring, ready to trigger the ejection seats at any time during the first fifty seconds of the flight, after which they were not a viable means of escape. Young, being more trusting of his commander and the spacecraft, kept his hands firmly in his lap as Grissom later reported.

The two astronauts then successfully completed a near-perfect three-orbit mission in a little less than five hours.

For Grissom, there was only one significant unanticipated incident during the splashdown. This was due to the fact that the Gemini spacecraft had been designed to land at an angle in the water rather than base-first like Mercury. Accordingly the para­chute harness was rigged so that as the main parachute filled, the capsule was snapped from the vertical to a 45-degree landing attitude. Neither astronaut was prepared for the shock and severity of this action when the nose suddenly dropped after the main chute opened, and they were thrown forward. Grissom’s helmet hit a knob on the instrument panel, both cracking his faceplate and making a small hole. Young’s face­plate was similarly scratched following the jarring movement. Grissom later recom­mended that a small warning buzzer be installed to alert the crew when this action was about to take place.

As Grissom later recalled, when Molly Brown splashed down in the Atlantic, “In all honesty I must state that my first thought as we hit the water was, ‘Oh my God, here we go again!’ The Gemini spacecraft is designed so that the left window, my window, will be above water after landing, but instead of looking up at blue sky, I was peering down at blue water. I realized that I hadn’t cut loose our parachute, and the wind was blowing it across the water, dragging us along underneath like a submarine. Remembering that prematurely blown hatch on my Liberty Bell 7, it took all the nerve I could muster to reach out and trigger the parachute-release mechanism. But with the parachute gone, we bobbed to the surface like a cork in the position we were supposed to take.”5

Shortly thereafter an Air Rescue Service C-54 Skymaster deployed a pararescue team into the water, followed by another dive team dropped from a Navy helicopter, which attached the spacecraft’s floatation collar. Meanwhile, as Grissom later noted, he and Young were experiencing waves of nausea in their swaying spacecraft.

“It was, to put it bluntly, hot as hell inside the spacecraft, and that, coupled with the pitching and rolling, gave both of us some uncomfortable minutes of seasickness. John managed to hang on to his meal, but I lost mine in short order. Then we climbed out of our space suits.”6

The information that they had landed a little short of the projected splashdown site was communicated to the astronauts, along with the fact that USS Intrepid, the recov­ery carrier, was 60 miles downrange and wouldn’t arrive in the area for about ninety minutes, so they decided to request a helicopter pickup rather than remain in their sweltering, swaying spacecraft.

“I left the spacecraft first,” Grissom explained, “because my hatch was the one fully out of the water and could be opened without danger of flooding the cabin. John Young told me that this was the first time he’d ever seen a captain leave his ship first, so I promoted him to captain on the spot, which, he later claimed, entitled him, as a navy man, to rechristen our spacecraft the USS Molly Brown”1

After being taken aboard the recovery helicopter they were flown to the Intrepid, where they underwent the mandatory debriefing soon after touching down.

Grissom later said that if NASA had asked him and Young to go back into space aboard the Molly Brown the next day, they would have done so with pleasure.

“She flew like a queen, did our unsinkable Molly” he stated with a smile.

Two years prior to his Gemini mission, on 25 January 1963 Grissom gave a talk entitled “Green on Gemini” at the U. S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, in which he offered encouragement to those who might seek to join the space program as future astronauts.

“The training is tough and a lot of knowledge has to be crammed into our skull,” he stated. “At the same time, our bodies will be learning totally new responses, but the end result will give man a new freedom in space. Until now, man has been a

self-experimenting guinea pig, subjecting himself to space to test whether he can stand up to this hostile, new environment. With the Gemini program, man has stepped into his proper role – the explorer of space.”8