Science: Freedom’s Flight

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For an endless, heart-stopping moment, the tall, slim rocket hung motionless —incredibly balanced above its incandescent tail. Slowly it climbed the sky, outracing the racket of its engine as it screamed toward space. In the returning silence, the amplified thump of an electronic timer beat like a pulse across the sands of Florida’s Cape Canaveral. The pulse of the nation beat with it. For this was no routine rocket shoot. Riding that long, white missile as it soared aloft last week was Navy Commander Alan B. Shepard Jr., first U.S. astronaut ever fired into space. And riding with him was his country’s pride, the prestige of his country’s science, the promise of his country’s future on the expanding frontiers of the universe.

As the missile arced into high, cool air, millions of awed Americans followed its flight. On television sets from Canaveral to California they watched while its widening vapor trail was twisted into antic patterns by winds aloft. They listened while the calm, businesslike voice of the astronaut reported by radio as he progressed along his predetermined path. Schoolrooms knew an unaccustomed hush as students concentrated on Shepard’s dangerous trip. Traffic thinned in thousands of cities as drivers pulled to the curb and tuned their radios. In Indianapolis, a judge halted courtroom proceedings so that all hands could watch a TV set that had been picked up by police as part of a thief’s loot. Tension built steadily until the proud word came: Commander Shepard had landed safely in his space capsule, 302 miles downrange in the Atlantic, six miles from the predicted impact point. He and his capsule had been hauled from the sea by a Marine helicopter, and both were safely aboard the aircraft carrier Lake Champlain.

After 28 months of bickering. and breakdowns, of painful delays and wrecked plans, the U.S. Mercury man-in-space project had finally achieved its first objective: an American astronaut had been shot out of the earth’s atmosphere and had returned alive. Shepard’s trip, to be sure, had been brief (15 min.). Top speed of his capsule had been only 4,500 m.p.h., not significantly faster than the design speed of the U.S.’s piloted rocket plane X-15. Though his capsule had curved along its course with infinite precision, its ballistic trajectory could not be compared with the far more complicated orbital flight that Russia claimed last month for its own astronaut, Yuri Gagarin (TIME cover, April 21). Still, it was a magnificent milestone on man’s path into space; it was a signal achievement of U.S. science. And it brightened the cold-war world with a luster all its own. It was a gaudy American gamble, a nation going for broke in the glare of pitiless publicity.

Having won its wager in the presence of prying television cameras and all the world’s press, the U.S. could take special satisfaction in the fact that its spacemen did not keep secrets from science. They had worked in the open, unafraid of failure, unshielded by the compulsive secrecy that still surrounds much of the voyage of Yuri Gagarin’s Vostok. Now, like Kilroy, Shepard had been there—and while he traveled, the world had watched.

Low Residue. In his silvered pressure suit, Astronaut Shepard seemed a creature from another planet as he stepped out of a white van into the baleful Florida dawn last week. He glittered under the searchlights that surrounded the rocket pad as he made his long-legged walk to the gantry elevator that would lift him to his capsule. When he rose to the “greenhouse,” an enclosed platform at the gantry’s 65-ft. level, technicians helped him squeeze through a hatch in the squat, black space capsule perched atop a Redstone rocket. Then he submitted to the time-consuming business of being strapped onto a contour couch, of being hooked up to myriad tubes and wires. At 6:10 a.m. E.S.T., the hatch was closed and sealed. Blast-off was still more than three hours away.

Shepard himself had already put in even longer hours of preparation. That morning, he had been awakened at i a.m. After a shower and shave he had break fast: orange juice, eggs, tea and a y-oz. filet mignon wrapped in bacon was characteristic of the substantial but lowresidue diet that astronauts stick to when about to make a flight. After eating, Shepard got an elaborate physical examination. Everything was normal; so he moved to the suiting room to get into his space gear.

First “clothes” applied were four electrocardiograph sensors glued to his chest. Then came a respirometer (to measure breathing) taped to his neck and a rectal thermometer to measure deep body temperature. Wires from all these instruments were gathered at a metal plug that would be fitted later into the space suit. After all wires and instruments were checked, Shepard donned long underwear with built-in spongy pads to aid air circulation. Then he was helped into his 30-lb. space suit made of aluminized nylon outside and rubberized nylon inside. It was a tight squeeze. Before all Zippers, straps and metal fittings were set properly in place, Shepard was sweating profusely and breathing hard. As soon as he got his helmet on, he lay down on a specially fitted contour couch, feet held up in clamps, while his oxygen and air-pressure hoses were attached.

Shepard relaxed on the couch until 3:55. Then, escorted by two doctors, he carried his portable air-conditioning unit out of the building. Glaring TV lights met him head on, forcing him to squint his eyes. He climbed into the white transport van, lay down on another contour couch while the van drove slowly to Pad 5.

Shepard stayed on the van’s couch, comfortably cooled and pressurized, until 5:14, when he went up in the gantry’s elevator and entered the Mercury capsule, which was named Freedom 7 (from Shepard’s seventh place on the alphabetical list of trained astronauts). Reporters, TV crews, and crowds of technicians from McDonnell Aircraft Corp. (which made the capsule) watched the silvery apparition with awe and admiration. For the last time that morning, Shepard lay down on a contour couch.

Redstone Ready. The lonely wait ahead of him was as familiar as the suiting-up process. Just three days before, Shepard had struggled into his pressure suit and suffered its discomfort for nearly four hours before the shot was canceled because of weather. Now the whole tedious preflight procedure had been repeated. Step by step the Redstone had been readied for launch. The capsule’s innards had been checked and rechecked (Fellow Astronaut John Glenn had spent the previous two hours in a minute inspection) before a warning horn sent mournful blasts across the palmetto flats. The Redstone was ready.

Still there were more delays. Weather reports were coming in from the length of the Southeastern seaboard, and the possibility of cloud cover had to be calculated over and over. Minor mechanical troubles had to be repaired. As the countdown was held and resumed, doctors talked to Shepard and pronounced him the calmest man on the Cape. At T minus 2 minutes (2 minutes before launch), as the sun climbed the eastern sky, the “cherry picker” (a jointed crane capable of plucking the astronaut out of his capsule in case of a prelaunch disaster) backed away. At T minus 30 seconds the “umbilical cord” of tubing and cables that had been supplying electricity, communication and liquid oxygen fell free. At 9:34 a.m. the last second ticked off; the rocket’s liquid-fueled engines flared flame, and the flight began.

What a Ride. Strapped firmly on his couch, Shepard could hear the rocket’s roar, could feel its wild vibration, its immense thrust as he was boosted into the air. Everything went exactly according to expectations. In the operations room at the Mercury control blockhouse, doctors crouched over telemetering equipment that recorded the astronaut’s pulse, temperature, respiration. Range officers watched as moving lights on the electronic status board traced the rocket’s path, predicted the capsule’s point of impact. Another astronaut manned the communications console and began the running fire of reports.

Voice from ground: Firing command, 30, mark.

Shepard: Roger. Periscope has retracted.

Voice: 15, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, zero. Liftoff.

Shepard: Roger, liftoff, and the clock is started.

As the rocket climbed, Shepard calmly reported the growing Gs of acceleration and the state of the capsule’s pressure and oxygen supply. The Gs rose to four, then five, but his voice showed no sign of stress.

Shepard: Cap sep is coming out, and the turn-around has started. (This means that the capsule had freed itself and was ready to maneuver.)

Voice: Roger.

Shepard: O.K. Switching to manual pitch.

Voice: Manual pitch.

Shepard: Pitch is O.K. Switching to manual yaw.

Shepard was testing the capsule’s maneuvering system, which can control changes of pitch, yaw or roll by emitting spurts of gas. Every movement was completed with ease.

Shepard: On the periscope. What a beautiful sight!

Voice: I’ll bet it is.

Shepard: Cloud cover over Florida. Three-to four-tenths on the Eastern Coast, obscured up through Hatteras. Can see [Lake] Okeechobee, identified Andros Island [one of the Bahamas].

The conversation continued. Shepard’s voice was clear and controlled. After maneuvering his capsule, he reported that it had assumed the proper attitude for firing its three braking retrorockets. They were not necessary for the flight; this time they were fired for practice. Then the retro package was jettisoned. Preparing for descent, Shepard reported that his periscope had retracted. As the capsule plunged downward into the atmosphere, and the Gs of deceleration climbed toward a punishing 10, the astronaut’s voice grew gruff as he strained to make his breath behave. Then the capsule slowed; his words were distinct again.

Shepard: All clear. This is Freedom 7.

Voice: Your impact will be right on the button.

Almost on the button waited the carrier Lake Champlain. Just before Shepard’s launch, five Marine helicopters had buzzed from her deck to stand by for his arrival. Their crews had trained for a year for this moment; they were experts at hovering over a Mercury capsule, snagging it with a giant, steel shepherd’s crook and getting its astronaut on board quickly. One of the skilled crook handlers, Lieut. George Cox, had fished the Astrochimp Ham out of the drink last Jan. 31.

On the deck of the carrier, 1,200 crewmen who roared their cheers when they heard that Shepard was on his way, waited in silent expectation as he made his lonely flight. From time to time an announcer reported his progress; then Shepard’s voice itself came over the loudspeaker. It was not clear. He was descending, and the Gs of re-entry were pressing him hard. Every man on the deck scanned the sky. When Freedom 7’s big orange-and-white parachute popped open at 10,000 ft., the Lake Champlain came alive with cheers once more. “Damn!” the sailors shouted. “Marvelous!”

The capsule descended, swinging widely on its chute, and the choppers buzzed to meet it. They were hovering close when it hit the water with a small splash, three miles away. Shepard had already asked by radio to be taken aboard; so Crook Wielder Cox got a line around the capsule, steadied it and lowered a horsecollar sling to lift Shepard to the chopper.* Safe in the cabin, the first U.S. astronaut exulted: “It’s a beautiful day. Boy, what a ride!”

For Disaster. For the first time in the tensest quarter-hour of his life, Alan Shepard could afford to forget the intricate complex of rescue gear that had been guarding his path from Pad 5 to U.S.S. Lake Champlain. Few men in history have been watched over so cautiously. Long before he blasted off, Astronaut Shepard had become the focus of a vast deployment of equipment and personnel. Everything imaginable had been done to ensure his safety.

Until the last two minutes before blastoff, the cherry picker had been close to the pad, prepared to snatch Shepard from Freedom 7 in case of a disaster on the ground. Besides the cherry picker, a fire-proofed Army personnel carrier stood by with a fire-suited crew. Some four miles from Pad 5, the headquarters of the Cape’s Abort Rescue Team was a humming hive of activity. Six helicopters were tuning up, ready to carry skilled technicians, doctors and frogmen to rescue the astronaut if the capsule splashed near by. If the Freedom 7 should start to sink, frogmen would be ready to slip beneath it and inflate a raft to lift it to the surface. Army amphibious craft were ready to retrieve the capsule if it fell in the surf. Waiting out at sea were 65-ft. Navy speedboats; other special craft were on the alert should the capsule head in the wrong direction and land in the Banana River, the shallow lagoon behind Cape Canaveral. The chance that any of this complicated and costly equipment would be needed had been calculated at something like 1 in 100. But among the burdens (and the glories) of the U.S. military tradition is the principle that a man in distress is worth the cost of any rescue.

Downrange, to the north of Grand Bahama Island, was an even weightier deployment. Circling near the calculated impact area of the Mercury capsule, Lake Champlain bristled with helicopters, and a flotilla of six destroyers strung out along the range. Watching the range with sharp electronic eyes were the swarming radars of Cape Canaveral, and high overhead soared monstrous aircraft burdened with more radars. Neither money, men nor equipment had been spared to protect the life of U.S. Astronaut No. 1.

Tests & Torture. Painstaking as they were, all the preparations for trouble could not compare with the planning that had gone into the training of the astronaut himself. One of seven volunteers chosen in April 1959 from a list of no military test pilots, Shepard had been in rigorous discipline ever since. He took physical tests that most doctors have no need for. His blood was analyzed in a dozen different ways; the functioning of his various organs—heart, lungs, spleen, stomach, eyes, etc.—were tested over and over. He traveled out to Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory to have his body’s natural radiation measured.

Along with his fellow astronauts, Shepard submitted on the ground to all the possible privations of space flight. He walked on endless treadmills, sat with his feet in ice water, endured two hours in a room heated to 130°F. and three hours in a soundproof, totally dark chamber. He took countless psychological tests. His torso was tattooed to mark the spots where electrodes would be attached for medical measurement.

At Johnsville, Pa., he rode in a human centrifuge to feel crushing G forces. He learned to recognize useful stars. He took training in desert survival and practiced squirming out of a Mercury capsule while it was tossing on a choppy sea. He learned about weightlessness by flying in high-speed airplanes as they curved over the top half of an outside loop. He rode in a MASTIF (Multiple Axis Space Test Inertia Facility), a training device that tumbles on three axes, and learned how to bring it to an even keel. In quieter moments he studied astronautics, aviation biology, astronomy, meteorology and astrophysics. Always, he kept in top physical shape.

Most important of all, Shepard and his fellows (they are all as well trained as he) learned to operate the intricate machinery of a Mercury capsule, which is far from being a passive space vehicle that is just up there to coast along. Though it weighs only a little more than one ton (Russia’s Vostok weighed five tons), it is packed with instruments, controls and safety devices, many of them merely duplicate systems for the sake of safety. Sealed into an actual capsule, Shepard “flew” dozens of simulated missions without leaving the ground, learned to handle the controls with skill, and found out exactly what he could do to save himself if anything went wrong.

Skis & Soles. For Shepard, the challenging curriculum seemed a natural outgrowth of the life that he likes to lead. Born in East Derry, N.H. (pop. 200), in 1923, he is the son of a retired Army colonel, but he chose the Naval Academy instead of West Point, was commissioned an ensign in 1944, and served on a destroyer in the Atlantic until the end of World War II. Everything he did, he did with a personal flair. When he wangled orders to flight school, he became so impatient with the pace of service routine that he got himself a private pilot’s license at a civilian flight school. When he took up water skiing, he found two skis too prosaic; he learned to manage with one and is now planning to get a boat fast enough to pull him along on the soles of his bare feet. “It is characteristic of him always to find a challenge,” says his pretty wife Louise, whom he married in 1945 after dating her at Annapolis. Shepard’s prep school coach puts it another way: “He was a hard-nosed kid, always accepted a challenge. He always had a lot of courage.”

As she and her two daughters, Laura, 13, and Juliana, 9, watched on TV while Alan Shepard blasted off last week, Louise never doubted that he would survive the challenge. Or so she said, as she wiped away her nervous tears when word came that her husband was safe. She had been resigned to the ordeal ever since he put in for space-flight training. The day that he got his orders to join Project Mercury, Christian Scientist Alan Shepard had a serious talk with his wife, harping on the security that an astronaut could never have. Louise listened for a while and said: “What are you bothering to ask me for? You know you’ll do it anyway.”

Admiral’s Cabin. Chances are, the six other astronauts* shared Shepard’s driving urge to get into space. But by the time the top three men were chosen to prepare for the final countdown, despite persistent rumors that Marine Lieut. Colonel John Glenn was the front runner, Shepard’s peers had already picked him as their personal choice. His utter devotion to the experiment earned him the flight. Said he with a grin: “Maybe I’m a link between Ham the Space Chimp and man.” Whatever the reasons, it was Shepard who was chosen by National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials for the first, historic hop. Slayton and Cooper busied themselves with communications; Schirra and Carpenter flew jet chase planes over the range; Slayton and Grissom were on hand to greet their buddy at Grand Bahama Island; John Glenn was the back-up man and checked out the capsule.

Even after the tedious training paid off in a perfect flight, Shepard’s ordeal was not over. “Debriefing” (Pentagonese for careful questioning) began the moment that he landed on Lake Champlain’s deck. Doctors hustled Shepard to the admiral’s cabin, where they first let him talk away his effervescent enthusiasm. Then, while tape recorders continued to catch every word, they began questions designed to collect scraps of information that the space traveler might have gathered. Relief came when Shepard was summoned to the bridge; President Kennedy was calling by radiophone from Washington.

Kennedy congratulated Shepard, told him that the presidential family had watched his flight on TV, and said that he was looking forward to seeing him in Washington. Said Shepard: “Thank you very much, Mr. President. It was certainly a very thrilling ride. I’d like to thank everybody who made it possible.” Soon after the stilted conversation (which sounded for all the world like Major Yuri Gagarin’s talk with Khrushchev after his orbital flight), an airplane took Shepard to Grand Bahama Island, where he was held incommunicado for an elaborate physical and mental examination and a more complete debriefing.

Baby Step. But even with the hero out of sight, the voluntary hero-making mechanisms of the U.S. worked at full blast. A newly built school in Deerfield, Ill., was named for Shepard. A greeting card went on sale in Boston for admirers to send to the astronaut. Mayor Wagner of New York promised him the greatest ticker-tape welcome in New York’s littered history. Mayor Poulson of Los Angeles immediately tried to outbid Wagner. A bar in Fort Wayne, Ind., treated its customers to champagne. Senators, judges, professors and generals burst into praise for Shepard. Said First Lady Jackie Kennedy: “I think it’s wonderful.” Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire was loudly proud that Shepard came from his state. The people of Derry, N.H., the astronaut’s home town, organized their biggest parade ever. Marines, Navy, Air Force, and National Guard units marched in review. Planes zoomed overhead and showered confetti on the main street, schools were closed, and one overenthusiastic patriot suggested renaming Derry “Space-town, U.S.A.” In Washington President Kennedy announced that the astronaut would get NASA’s Distinguished Service Medal. When Shepard’s handsome wife Louise heard what her husband had achieved, she beamed with pride and joy. “This is just a baby step,” she said, “compared to what we will see.”

Some of the celebrations were silly, some were self-serving, but U.S. prestige and self-confidence had made a real gain. The free world rang with praise. Official Iron Curtain comments were contemptuous, but many Russians seemed privately pleased. U.S. newsmen at a Moscow reception were warmly congratulated by their Russian colleagues.

From Japan to Britain, radios had reported the gathering tension at Canaveral, the blast-off and the brief, successful flight. Congratulatory messages poured in from the world’s capitals. Few foreigners shared the cool scorn of the Parisian who growled: “The Americans are crazy, and the Russians are crazy, too.” Nor did anyone west of the Iron Curtain echo Radio Prague, which called Shepard’s flight “scientifically primitive.” In Europe and the U.S. most space spectators agreed with Leonard J. Carter, secretary of the British Interplanetary Society: “The Americans had the right way of doing it. Unlike the Russians, they allowed us all to take part in the fantastic adventure. I was pretty well right up there in the capsule with him.”

Brave Dreams Again. Even in the first flush of worldwide praise, U.S. spacemen did not deceive themselves. They still have a universe to conquer. The Russians are far in front of them, and even if Project Mercury puts a manned capsule into true orbit by the end of 1961 (a hopeful schedule that few scientists take seriously), there is always a chance that the Russians will make an even more spectacular shot.*

But Shepard’s flight was nevertheless a great U.S. gain, a shot in the arm for U.S. enthusiasts. U.S. spacemen, and the businessmen, engineers, Congressmen and assorted civilians who support them, are once again dreaming brave dreams. Daring and hopeful projects are making the rounds: there is confident talk of nuclear rockets that will penetrate far into space, giant, solid-propellant boosters to lift great weights off the earth and permit manned flights far beyond the known world.

One such project, long in the planning stage, is the construction of Dyna-Soar, a controllable, maneuverable space vehicle capable of skimming the atmosphere on hot, stubby wings and of landing on a chosen spot, not merely drifting down by parachute like the Vostok or Freedom 7. Now veteran rocketmen are talking of beating Dyna-Soar off the pad. They are suggesting a solid-fuel rocket with upper-stage rockets powerful enough to put the present X-15 into orbit. Long before the Russians get a true plane into space, the U.S. might have the X-15 circling the world. Once in orbit, the swift little rocketship could maneuver freely, change direction and altitude, cross and recross the same cities, and glide down to land on conventional airports.

The plans proliferate, and there is small doubt that astronauts of the near future will be making dangerous penetrations far into space, where no earthlings have ventured before. With each success, the universe will grow smaller, but man’s life will grow larger, expanding with infinite promise. And as long as the U.S. produces such explorers as Commander Alan Shepard, the architects of man’s expansion may well be Americans.

* The short hoist from sea to helicopter was not without its danger. Earlier in the week, two Navy free balloonists, Commander Malcolm Ross and Lieut. Commander Victor Prather Jr., made a record flight (21.5 mi.) off the U.S.S. Antietam in the Gulf of Mexico, were picked up by a helicopter shortly after their gondola landed in the water. Commander Ross rode a horsecollar sling to safety. Commander Prather, a Navy medical officer on his third balloon ascent, fell from the sling as he was rising to ward the hovering chopper. Dragged under by the weight of his pressure suit, he died soon after a frogman hauled him to the surface.

* Lieut. Commander M. Scott Carpenter, U.S.N., Captain L. Gordon Cooper Jr., U.S.A.F., Lieut. Colonel John H. Glenn Jr., U.S.M.C., Captain Virgil I. Grissom, U.S.A.F., Lieut. Commander Walter M. Schirra Jr., U.S.N., Captain Donald K. Slayton, U.S.A.F.

* The U.S. is doing reasonably well in military space craft. The solid-fuel Minuteman proved long ago that it can take off handily from an underground silo; last week a two-stage, 110-ton liquid-fuel Titan also took off from a silo. Pre ceded by a burst of flame, it roared out of a 146-ft. concrete-lined hole at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. Since it carried a dummy second stage, it flew for only 140 seconds before it was deliberately “destructed” by radio command. But it proved that even comparatively tender liquid-fuel rockets, which are heavy weight lifters, can take off from a “hard” base that promises resistance to enemy attacks.