SPACE: Lead-Footed Mercury

From a Cape Canaveral blockhouse the seven Mercury astronauts watched tensely last week as the countdown neared zero. Atop a towering Redstone rocket rested the one-ton Mercury space capsule of the type that is supposed to carry the first astronaut into orbit some time in late 1961.

Instead of soaring 200 miles out over the Atlantic as it was supposed to do, the Redstone roared a few inches into the air and then settled lumpishly back onto its launching pad. Adding to the absurdity of the scene was the wild behavior of the small “escape rocket” perched atop the Mercury capsule. The function of the escape rocket is to save the astronaut’s life by blasting off in a hurry, taking the capsule with it, if the main rocket malfunctions. But this time the electronic signals got scrambled and the escape rocket blasted into the blue all alone, leaving the Mercury capsule behind atop the Redstone.

Shifting Target. Spokesmen for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration carefully explained that for the first time in 60 Redstone firings, one of two disconnect plugs had pulled 20 milliseconds behind the other—thus setting up a circuit that cut off the rocket engine. The cutoff told the capsule to blast loose, but a clamp held it securely while the escape rocket blasted away.

Spaceman Wernher von Braun called the misfire “a little mishap” bravely predicted that the U.S. would still manage to orbit a manned capsule by the end of 1961. But Project Mercury’s latest failure, third in a row, just about evaporated the last faint wisp of hope that the U.S. might put a man into space before Russia does.

In the two years since NASA took over the Mercury program, its target date for getting a man into orbit and back has steadily shifted: from late 1959 to mid-1960 to late 1960 to early 1961 to mid-1961 and now to late 1961. Meanwhile, by sending the dogs Belka and Strelka into orbit last August and recovering them, the Russians have shown that it should not be much more complicated to put an astronaut into space any time they are willing to risk a man instead of a couple of mutts. “I would say that you could wake up any morning and find a Russian in space,” says NASA’s Project Mercury Boss Robert Gilruth. “I’m frankly surprised that they haven’t done it before now.”

Costly Miniatures. The basic reason for Mercury’s slippage is the trouble that underlies the U.S.’s efforts in heavyweight space feats, despite all the U.S. achievements in scientific exploration of space. The Russians have rockets with far greater thrust than the U.S.’s biggest. The space capsule that carried Belka and Strelka weighed five tons. The most powerful U.S. rocket available, the Air Force’s Atlas, can at best put only a one-ton payload into orbit. What has delayed Mercury more than any other factor is the slow, painstaking miniaturization involved in devising an adequate capsule weighing only one ton. Because of such complications, some knowledgeable critics believe that it is high time for NASA to review the Mercury man-in-space project (cost to date: $350 million) and decide whether it makes sense to go ahead.

Meanwhile, U.S. spacemen are working on huge rockets, Saturn and Nova, with thrusts far greater than any known Soviet rocket, but Saturn will not be ready until 1963, according to present plans, and Nova not until 1968.