Science: Meditative Chimponaut

Few human children have been treated with more cautious care. Dressed by a team of tender technicians, the little chimpanzee was togged out in spotless diaper and nylon mesh space suit, then zippered into a fitted contour couch that looked like a cradle trimmed with electronics. After two hours of fussing, Enos. the 5½-year-old chimponaut, was ready to ride the first passenger-carrying orbital flight of U.S. Project Mercury. His cradle was fitted into a Mercury capsule on the nose of an Atlas rocket.

The high ride was scheduled for 7:30 a.m., but it was held up for a while because of minor troubles with the capsule’s telemetry system. Enos, who is called by his trainers “a meditative chimp,” did not seem to mind. Snug in his air-conditioned nest, he waited patiently. At 10:07, the Atlas roared off its pad, climbed above Cape Canaveral and arced toward the northeast. It curved into orbit about 100 miles up.

By 10:38, the capsule and rocket had separated, and Enos was over Zanzibar. The Zanzibar tracking station reported: “He hasn’t missed a trick yet.” Neither the acceleration of the roaring ascent nor weightlessness in orbit seemed to bother the meditative chimp. When colored lights appeared in little windows above his couch, he pressed the levers which, as he had been taught, would keep him from suffering mild electric shocks. Over Australia and over the Pacific, the lights appeared as scheduled, and Enos, performing properly, got no shocks. He was reported by Mexico at 11:34 and by Canaveral at 11:41. He completed his first orbit in one hour, 28.5 min. His heartbeat (105-120), respiration (20-25) and temperature (98°) were considered normal. So far the flight was perfect.

Banana Flavor. The plan was to allow Enos to orbit the earth three times before parachuting the capsule into the Atlantic. But in case of trouble, ships and planes had been deployed in eight widely separated landing places. As the capsule soared over Africa for the second time, everything was normal. While it was crossing the Indian Ocean, Enos was doing minor tasks that earned him sips of water and ten small, banana-flavored pellets, which were delivered mechanically when he pushed the proper levers. But as the capsule approached Australia, the monitor station at Muchea on the west coast noted that it was not maintaining its proper attitude. Instead of pointing its blunt forward end steadily 34 degrees above the horizontal, it was veering erratically. The stations at Woomera, in south-central Australia, and at Hawaii, confirmed Muchea’s report. Apparently one of the hydrogen-peroxide jets that controlled the capsule’s attitude in space had failed to close.

The failure was serious because the retrorockets that are fired to slow the capsule and bring it down from orbit cannot do their job unless they are pointed in the proper direction. One of the Soviet dog-carrying satellites came to grief for just this reason. Instead of curving the satellite to earth, its retrorockets shot it into a higher orbit.

As Enos and his capsule swept above the Pacific, Mercury Flight Director Christopher Columbus Kraft, at Canaveral’s Mercury Control, was forced to make a fast decision. Peroxide fuel was pouring out through the stuck-open jet. An emergency control system, activated by radio, returned the capsule into its proper attitude, but there was probably not enough peroxide left to keep it pointing correctly for three full orbits. Deciding to play it safe and bring the capsule down on the second orbit, Chris Kraft ordered Flight Operations Chief Arnold Aldrich at Point Arguello, Calif., to start the automatic firing system that would touch off the retrorockets.

Rest in Bermuda. As Enos approached California at 17,500 m.p.h., Aldrich transmitted the necessary signal. The re-entry mechanism—retro-rockets, parachutes, etc. —worked without flaw. At 1:28 p.m., the capsule plopped gently into the Atlantic 200 miles south of Bermuda, almost smack in the center of a planned emergency landing area. Aircraft spotted the spaceship at once, and the destroyer Stormes, which was 30 miles away, raced up to pick it out of the water. When the capsule was opened, Enos was reported to be “excitable but in good shape.” He was taken to St. George’s, Bermuda, for a well-deserved rest in a hospital room.

Project Mercury officials are sure that if Chimponaut Enos had been a human astronaut, the full three-orbit flight would have been finished successfully. “The primate shots,” says Operations Director Walter Williams, “are the toughest flights we have.” They carry a vulnerable living creature that must be protected tenderly, but still they must be fully automated. Williams believes that a human passenger in the capsule could have controlled it manually and kept its attitude correct for three orbits without wasting fuel.

Enos’ capsule, which was recovered intact, will have to be studied carefully before anyone can be sure exactly what caused the peroxide jet to malfunction. If changes are called for, the first manned orbital shot, now scheduled for Christmas week, may be delayed for a while. But everything possible is being done to keep the schedule, and Mercury Chief Robert R. Gilruth confidently announced that the astronaut for the manned orbital shot had been selected. The U.S.’s first orbital spaceman will be Marine Lieut. Colonel John Herschel Glenn Jr., 40, a veteran pilot who sports a chestful of medals from both World War II and Korea. His back-up man will be Lt. Cdr. Scott Carpenter. Specialists in the astronaut guessing game picked Glenn early as an odds-on favorite to become the first U.S. space rider. When Commander Alan Shepard Jr. and Captain Virgil Grissom were picked for the first suborbital hops. Glenn’s backers merely said: “They’re saving the Marine for the big one.” And indeed they were.

After Enos had been recovered safely, Col. Glenn looked toward the future by affirming his belief in the superiority of astronauts over chimponauts. “I am happy about the selection,” he said. “Needless to say, we feel that a man today would have handled the problem in good shape.”