Category Liberty Bell 7

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