Space: Sweet Little Bird

The U.S. last week passed another milestone in the space age—but this time the milestone was emotional as well as scientific. With the successful countdown and launch of Sigma 7, the near-flawless orbital performance of spacecraft and pilot and the extraordinary precision of impact and recovery, the U.S. space program graduated from quivering apprehension to solid confidence.

Once the men in the space program had done their best and then depended on luck; now they are prepared to take success for granted, rather than being surprised or relieved by it. On the long road ahead to the moon, there may yet be setbacks and disasters, but last week’s shot guaranteed that they will be accepted as the price of enterprise, not as discouraging proof of backwardness.

Americans in general reacted the same way. Gone from the Florida beaches were the jostling crowds of jittery, prayerful and sometimes ghoulish spectators who watched earlier Mercury flights. Newsmen on the spot neither applauded nor cheered, as before, as the rocket lifted easily into a clear blue sky. Even after Sigma 7 went into orbit, many Americans preferred to watch the Giants and the Dodgers slug it out in their final play-off game.

Dutiful Flying. Everything went right from the beginning. Sigma 7 bobbed into a beautifully circular orbit, and calm, cool Navy Commander Walter Marty (“Wally”) Schirra, 39, was in buoyant good humor. “Sayonara!” he cried when the escape tower separated, and soon he reported “all systems green and go.” Then he settled down to cheerful, competent and dutiful space flying. He watched the instruments closely and talked with each control station as he passed near it. Like the other astronauts, Schirra ran into trouble with the water boil-off system of his space suit, and its temperature became so high on the first orbit that some thought was given to aborting the flight. But Schirra quickly got the suit’s temperature down by manipulating its controls, later announced: “It’s not worth even discussing any more.”

Over Australia, Schirra changed the attitude of his capsule, but he did it very slowly to save precious peroxide fuel. Nearing Mexico, Schirra announced that he was flying “chimp configuration,” meaning that he was on the fuel-saving automatic control as if a chimp were piloting. When he heard that all was favorable for the full six orbits, he cried, “Hallelujah!” and over Hawaii he called out, “Aloha!” At one point, he radioed back to earth: “I have a delightful report for one John Glenn. I, too, see fireflies”—the luminous particles first noticed by Glenn outside the capsule and sometimes called “the Glenn effect.”

Drifting & Dreaming. The Sigma 7 was equipped for a few scientific experiments, including some star observations for Schirra to make. But the main purpose of the six-orbit flight was to check the performance of the capsule’s oxygen, electrical-and attitude-control systems. Considered critical was the amount of fuel needed. Schirra proved, as the technicians had suspected, that both Glenn and Carpenter could have managed with much less fuel if they had done less aimless maneuvering.

On his fourth orbit, Schirra shut off all control systems and went into drifting flight, his capsule turning slowly as it swept around the earth. Sometimes he rode backwards, sometimes upside down, but since he was weightless anyway, this did not bother him at all. “Drifting and dreaming,” he radioed cheerfully to the ground. He drifted for three hours and 26 minutes, burning no fuel. Astronauts Glenn and Carpenter used nearly all their fuel before reentry, but Schirra approached the critical moment with 80% of his fuel still untouched.

That came as the capsule swept over the Philippine Sea, heading for the final target north of Midway Island, where the aircraft carrier Kearsarge waited. As the capsule started its descent through the atmosphere, officers watching radar on the Kearsarge could hardly believe their eyes: the Sigma 7 seemed to be heading directly for the Kearsarge, looked as if it might land right on the flight deck. Borne by its parachute, it finally landed only four miles from the carrier, hitting the proverbial pickle barrel after 155,000 miles of flight.

While Sigma 7 bobbed on the little waves of the sunlit Pacific, Schirra reported by radio that he was dry and comfortable and would prefer to be picked up while still in his own ship. “A sweet little bird,” he remarked. Helicopters dropped frogmen into the water, and they attached inflatable tubes to keep Sigma 7 afloat. Then the Kcarsarge launched a whaleboat, which attached a line to the capsule. With Navy punctilio. Schirra formally asked the Kearsarge’s captain for “permission to come aboard.” “Permission granted.” said Captain Eugene P. Rankin. After blowing the side hatch on deck. Schirra climbed out and was borne away for a physical examination and hours of dictating his observations. Doctors reported that he showed no ill effects from his nine-hour flight.

18 Orbits Next. Space scientists and engineers are loud in praise of Schirra. Cutting out flyboy tomfoolery and handling the capsule like the spacecraft it is. he proved that by drifting and careful use of the automatic control system the capsule can get along with less fuel on even longer orbits. A heavy periscope can also be dumped, because Schirra proved that tricks of maneuvering that make it unnecessary can be accomplished with very little fuel. These savings can be invested in other desirables, such as more oxygen for breathing and more water for cooling.

An immediate result of the flight was the probable cancellation of a second six-orbit jaunt. The next U.S. astronaut will probably fly 18 orbits early in 1963, staying in space for a full day. This will leave the U.S. still behind the Russians, whose heavier and better provisioned spacecraft have stayed in space for three and four days, but Astronaut Schirra—who is being called by admirers “the first real space pilot”—made a giant step toward catching up.