Space: Aurora 7. Do You Read Me?

The U.S. held its breath when Alan Shepard led the way into space. It suffered anxiety as Gus Grissom swam for his life in the Atlantic. It thrilled to the historic adventure of John Glenn. Now, as Astronaut Malcolm Scott Carpenter, 37, a wiry, laconic Navy lieutenant commander, hurtled three times around the earth, there was interest, but little of the intense excitement that had focused on previous flights. The nation seemed to be getting sophisticated about space travel—until, at the end, a harrowing, wildly suspenseful 57 minutes showed just how thin the veneer of sophistication is.

For the first time in U.S. man-in-space operations, no technical difficulties marred the countdown. “It wasn’t just smooth,” said Project Mercury Operations Director Walter Williams. “It was perfect.” Waiting inside his Aurora 7 capsule, Carpenter had no problems. With eleven minutes to go, a morning ground haze at Cape Canaveral caused a 45-minute delay. Then the sun burst through, and at 7:45 E.S.T. the huge Atlas missile blazed into the sky.

“Sweet Words.” To watching Americans, the flight began uneventfully. Sitting in the control center at Cape Canaveral, Gus Grissom, handling the ground-to-space communication, told Carpenter that Aurora 7 was in a near-perfect orbit. “Sweet words,” replied Carpenter. “I have the moon in the center of the window, and the booster is off to the right slightly.” During his flight, Carpenter was supposed to complete several experiments that Glenn had been unable to carry out because of attitude-control system problems. He was scheduled to photograph cloud formations, test for the polarization of sunlight, look for comets close to the sun, take eye and balance tests, and exercise with a thick rubber band. But on the first orbit Carpenter began maneuvering the capsule by the “fly-by-wire” system, a semiautomatic device something like power steering on an automobile. As a result, he fell behind in his experiments, and began using up precious hydrogen peroxide, the fuel that is ejected as a gas to turn the capsule in flight. Says one Mercury official: “These guys all want to wobble the stick, and that’s where the damn fuel goes.” Balloon Bust. Little things kept going wrong. Passing over Nigeria, the temperature in Carpenter’s suit went up by 3.2°.

Because of cloud cover, he could not see the flares fired by rocket from Australia.

A washer appeared from nowhere and floated weightless around the cabin: Carpenter picked it out of midair. Approaching Guaymas, Mexico, on his first orbit, Carpenter tried one of the major experiments of his flight: he deployed a 30-in. balloon from his capsule on a nylon line to see what kind of drag it would have in the near vacuum of space. But the experiment was ruined when the multi-colored balloon inflated only partially.

On his second orbit, the temperature of the cabin and of Carpenter’s space suit fluctuated widely. Carpenter complained that he was sweating profusely. His body temperature was recorded at 104°. Dr.

Stanley White ordered Carpenter to stop using his rubber exerciser, told him to take plenty of water. He had no trouble drinking, although some of his bite-size food cubes crumbled, freeing particles to drift around the cabin.

Disturbing Tone. But these were minor matters compared to another problem: the fuel tank feeding the fly-by-wire and the automatic control systems was only 45% full. Flight Director Christopher Columbus Kraft ordered Carpenter to start flying the capsule by the manual control system, which uses a separate fuel tank. As Carpenter approached California, Kraft decided that there was still enough fuel for a third orbit. But he told Astronaut Shepard at the microphone in the tracking station at Point Arguello: “We still want to emphasize to him to limit his auto fuel usage.”

The crisis came on the third orbit. Project communicators, listening intently to Carpenter’s voice as he passed overhead, were disturbed by his tone. “We feel the astronaut was acting somewhat tired during the last pass,” the Woomera station later reported. Added the station at Kauai, Hawaii: “We had the impression that he was very confused about what was going on, but it was very difficult to assess whether he was confused or preoccupied.”

Bad Aim. Normally, the automatic control system is supposed to tilt the capsule into the proper position for firing the retro-rockets—the blunt heat shield end of the capsule pointing 34° above the horizon. But Carpenter felt that the automatic system was working badly; he decided to fly the capsule into the correct position by a combination of the manual and fly-by-wire controls.

He could not do it. Explained a Mercury official: “That thing is wobbling up there, and it’s hard as hell to hold it within reasonable tolerances for such a delicate maneuver.” When the scheduled instant came for the firing of the retrorockets over California. Carpenter apparently had the blunt end of the capsule pointed about 10° too low.

The poor positioning of the capsule kept the retrorockets from firing automatically at the end of the countdown.

At Cape Canaveral, scientists and engineers looked up in alarm from their instrument consoles. Five agonizing seconds passed. Then Carpenter, finally realizing what had gone wrong, reached up and fired the retrorockets manually. Says one man who was in the Canaveral control center: “When those retros fired, you could hear some loud sighs, people letting their breath out, and a ‘thank God’ or two.” “Roger”—And Out. But the damage was done. By firing the retros too late at too shallow an angle, Carpenter had foredoomed his capsule to land far out of the target area. There was another danger: Carpenter’s manual fuel tank was empty, and his automatic tank was only 15% full. He might not be able to hold the capsule steady in its plunge back down through the earth’s atmosphere. If the capsule tumbled, Scott Carpenter would perish in flames.

From Canaveral. Grissom methodically reported weather conditions in the recovery area to Carpenter (four-tenths cloud cover, 8 knots of wind, 3-ft. waves).

“Roger,” Carpenter acknowledged—and then his voice blacked out. That was expected; the descent of a red-hot capsule creates a cloud of ions that kills radio transmission. Glenn had come back on the air after four minutes. Carpenter did not come back on at all.

On the House. For nine minutes, the men in the control center did not know if Carpenter was dead or alive. Then their monitors picked up a few radioed heartbeats. But Information Officer “Shorty” Powers held off telling the TV audience that Carpenter had survived the plunge through the atmosphere. Across the U.S., televiewers feared the worst.

The minutes dragged past. In Manhattan’s Grand Central Terminal, a hush fell over the crowd gathered before a huge CBS screen. In the White House, a direct phone connection was set up with Canaveral so that President Kennedy could get immediate word of Carpenter’s fate.

The silence was broken only by the droning voice of Grissom: “Aurora 7.

Aurora 7. Do you read me? Do you read me?” Then, nearly 40 minutes after Carpenter went off the air. Powers announced that a Navy P2V patrol plane had picked up a beacon signal. It was the signal from Aurora 7, started automatically when the main chute deployed. Twenty minutes later. Powers, his voice resonant again, reported: “We have just received a report that an aircraft in the landing area has sighted the spacecraft and has sighted a life raft with a gentleman by the name of Carpenter riding in it.” Carpenter’s adventure was not yet over: he still had to be plucked from the Atlantic. Two Air Force paramedics, trained as skindivers and equipped with folding life rafts, parachuted into the sea near the capsule. Carpenter, preoccupied by the sight of other planes overhead, did not see them jump. Asked he in astonishment as they splashed up to him: “How did you get here?” After making sure that Carpenter was in good shape, each paramedic climbed into his own raft and floated alongside the astronaut. Like a thoughtful host. Carpenter broke out a water container, offered each man a drink.

Since Carpenter was under orders not to talk about his mission until he was debriefed by officials, he and the two paramedics sat in their rafts and made small talk until a Navy helicopter arrived.

Special Call. “He was the most exhilarated person I’ve ever seen.” said Lieut. Colonel Richard Rink, an Army doctor aboard the helicopter. “He was just bursting to tell someone about his trip.” In the helicopter, Carpenter several times threw back his head and cried: “Wow!” Once aboard the aircraft carrier Intrepid, he got a radiotelephone call from the White House. “I’m glad that you got picked up in good shape,” said the President. Replied Carpenter: “My apologies for not having aimed a little bit better on re-entry.” When Carpenter arrived at the debriefing headquarters on Grand Turk Island, he was warmly hugged by Glenn, who had tears in his eyes. Later, looking relaxed and fit. Carpenter said he was sorry that his flight had turned out to be such a cliffhanger. “It worried a lot of people.” said Scott Carpenter, “including my family and the people in the control center. No one knew where I was—and I didn’t either.”