A GIRDLE AROUND THE WORLD

Human space flight was in its infancy in mid-1961, and whilst many things had been taken into consideration for the comfort and safety of the astronauts, many unusual and unexpected issues would tend to crop up that needed a little additional thought and initiative. One such problem occurred during the flight of Alan Shepard, and it fell to the astronauts’ nurse Dee O’Hara to make a secret shopping trip prior to the flight of Gus Grissom.

When O’Hara first met the Mercury astronauts at the Cape after taking up her duties in Hangar S as the astronauts’ nurse, she understandably felt quite intimidated by the seven pilots and the aura surrounding them, even before the first space shot. But as she got to know the men she not only grew comfortable with them, and vice-versa, she also formed a lasting bond with them and their families. It was a bond based on friendship and mutual trust. She got on well with all of them, but admitted it took quite some time to connect with one of the seven, Gus Grissom.

“The only one I didn’t get to know right away or feel really close to was Gus, for some reason. But Gus was very quiet. I mean, it took time with Gus. The others were… it was almost, I don’t know what to say… just that it didn’t take very long till we reached the stage where we were comfortable. They knew me and, you know, it just evolved. But Gus, you had to kind of work at that one.”

O’Hara was asked if this was a trust thing on the part of Grissom, as she was in the medical profession, which all pilots shunned as much as possible.

“I don’t know, it very well may have been,” she ventured, “because back then there were no women in the [space] business. There was no one in that hangar, except there was an occasional. there were one or two secretaries, and I was not wanted at all by the management of NASA. It was [as if] they didn’t want me out there. It was a total, total male world. You know it was all engineers, and they flat out did not want any nurse up there – let alone a female. I didn’t know a lot of this had gone on; I didn’t know I was not wanted at that point – I had no idea… so I was pretty ignorant of the facts.

“But with Gus, he was just comfortable with other men and other pilots, and maybe it was the medical thing. I have no idea. I guess I never figured that out… but it took a long time, and so many months for him to look me in the eye or ask me for some­thing, whereas the others it was, well it just came very natural. But not with Gus, and I don’t know why.”

Shortly before Grissom’s flight, O’Hara was asked to help resolve a very delicate matter, based on a pre-launch problem involving Alan Shepard. In retrospect, no one seems to have considered the fact that a lengthy delay might have an adverse effect on an astronaut’s bladder, and, as a result, Shepard finally had to urinate in his space suit.

“Well, there were so many delays,” O’Hara recalled of that day. “It hadn’t been a problem until there was a launch delay after delay after delay. Finally poor Alan had been out there for what, four, six hours, and in the end they just said, ‘Hey, go ahead and urinate in your suit.’ And Alan always laughed and said he was the first wetback in space. But then… he had no other choice, and so then they tried to come up with a solution for Gus. That’s when I got sent on a mission for a girdle!”

It was not exactly a top-secret task, but Dee O’Hara was asked if she would make her way into Cocoa Beach and quietly locate an item of women’s apparel that would soon make its way into space.

“At that time they had these god-awful latex girdles, panty girdles, and I had to go in [a shop] and find one that would fit Gus. And I did.” Once there, an unknowing store assistant asked if she could help, and O’Hara said, ‘Well, I need a girdle for a friend.’

“The store assistant asked ‘Well, what size is she?’ And I said, ‘Well gee, I don’t know.’ She said, ‘Well they come in all sizes – you have to have some idea some idea what size she wears.’ So I picked out something that I thought might – Boy, if they only knew. So I picked out something I thought that might fit, and fortunately I think it did. Anyway, they used that, fitted out with a condom in order to… in case he needed it.”18