One Small Step Page 6

  Once the orbit had been determined, the data was sent to Moscow and reporters were instructed to open their secret envelopes. It took the Soviet news agency TASS an hour to broadcast the news:

  The world’s first satellite-ship “Vostok” with a human on board was launched into an orbit about the Earth from the Soviet Union. The pilot-cosmonaut of the spaceship satellite “Vostok” is a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Major Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin.

  The Americans already knew. A radio surveillance station in Alaska had detected transmissions from the spacecraft 20 minutes after launch.

  A View from Space

  The capsule was spinning slowly, and through the porthole Gagarin could see the blackness of space and the blue-white of the Earth beneath him. He could not see the stars. The television camera trained on his face required a bright light that almost dazzled him. He said: “I can see the clouds, everything. It’s beautiful.”

  Vostok’s path took it over Siberia, up to the Arctic Circle, across the Kamchatka Peninsula and into the Earth’s shadow over the Pacific. As Vostok’s orbit took it over Cape Horn and into the South Atlantic on the final leg of its journey, it was time to prepare for reentry. Seventy-nine minutes after liftoff Vostok automatically oriented itself, then the retro-rocket system fired for 40 seconds at 10:25 am. As soon as the braking rocket cut out, there was a sharp jolt, and Vostok began to rotate very quickly.

  Gagarin: I had barely enough time to cover myself to protect my eyes from the Sun’s rays. I put my legs to the porthole, but didn’t close the blinds.’

  There had been a serious malfunction. The large instrument section of the vehicle was due to separate from the spherical descent capsule but it did not happen. “I wondered what was going on and waited for the separation. There was no separation,” Gagarin said later. The mechanism detached the two modules as planned but the compartments remained loosely connected by a few cables. It was serious but not life threatening, and the instrument section did in fact break off later. Gagarin reported: “I used the telegraph key to transmit the ‘VN’ message meaning ‘all goes well.’”

  During reentry Gagarin saw a bright purple light at the edges of the blinds and said he felt the capsule oscillate and the coating burn away with cracking sounds. He was subjected to an intense 10 G and for about two or three seconds the instrument readings became blurred. “My vision became somewhat grayish. I strained myself again. This worked,” Gagarin said. At an altitude of 7000 meters (23,000 ft.) parachutes opened, and then the hatch was jettisoned. Gagarin was ejected a few seconds later and, looking down, recognized he was near the Volga. He separated from his seat, and his personal parachute deployed.

  Touchdown

  Ground control spent several anxious minutes when communications were cut off soon after the retrorockets fired. Korolev telephoned Khrushchev, who was at the holiday resort at Pitsunda: “The parachute has opened, and he’s landing. The spacecraft seems to be OK!” Khrushchev begged to know:

  Is he alive? Is he sending signals? Is he alive? Is he alive?

  At 10:55 am, just one hour and 48 minutes following launch, Gagarin landed softly in a field next to a deep ravine 18 miles (29 km) southwest of the town of Engels in the Saratov region. It took him six minutes to take off his spacesuit.

  Gagarin: I had to do something to send a message that I had landed normally. I climbed a small hill and saw a woman with a girl approaching me. She was about 800 meters (2625 ft.) away from me. I walked to her to ask where I could find a telephone. She told me that I could use the telephone in the field camp. I asked the woman not to let anyone touch my parachute.

  Korolev was beside himself, laughing and smiling for the first time in days. Members of the commission flew to the landing site to inspect the capsule. Korolev did not see it until later and reportedly could not take his eyes off it repeatedly touching it. Upon seeing Korolev, Gagarin reported quietly: “All is well, Sergei Pavlovich.”

  The New York Times ran the headline “Soviet Orbits Man And Recovers Him.” It was a headline that echoed around the world. Gagarin returned to Moscow Airport flanked by an escort of fighter planes, while thousands of onlookers cheered him on a procession to Red Square where Khrushchev, Brezhnev and other leaders of the Soviet state basked in the unqualified triumph. Derided for years by the West for its antiquated technology, the Soviet Union had taken one of the most important steps in history. Korolev, the chief architect of this achievement, traveled several cars behind the leading motorcade and was forbidden from wearing previous state awards on his lapel for fear that Western agents might recognize him.

  Shortly afterward US President John F. Kennedy asked Vice-President Lyndon Johnson for recommendations on activities in space that would provide “dramatic results” and beat the Soviets.

  TIMELINE

  1959 April 9 NASA announces the selection of America’s first seven astronauts for the Mercury program

  1960 May 15 First Vostok mission fails to return to Earth as planned

  July 28 Launch of second Vostok mission fails, killing dogs on board

  August 19 Successful Vostok mission launched with dogs Belka and Strelka on board

  October 24 Russian R-19 rocket explodes on launch pad

  December 1 Russian space dogs Pchelka and Mushka launched into orbit

  December 22 Russian dogs Kometa and Shutka survive a launch failure

  1961 January 6 The first six Russian cosmonauts are selected

  January 31 Chimpanzee Ham is the first primate in space aboard US Mercury-Redstone 2

  March Two test missions of human-rated Vostok spacecraft

  April 12 Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man into space aboard Vostok I, experiencing the weightlessness of space for 108 minutes

  “Let’s go and get the job done”

  AMERICA REACHES SPACE

  THE MERCURY FLIGHTS OF ALAN SHEPARD AND JOHN GLENN

  1961–1962

  Following the American disappointment at losing the race into space, Alan Shepard became the first US astronaut in space in a 15-minute suborbital flight on May 5, 1961. Barely three weeks later, President Kennedy threw down the gauntlet with a call for the landing of an American on the Moon by the end of the decade. Gus Grissom flew a similar flight to Shepard in July, followed by the Russian Gherman Titov who circled the Earth in August. In early 1962 John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth, followed later by Scott Carpenter.

  It is entirely possible that Yuri Gagarin could have been the second human to go into space, although he would have been the first to orbit the Earth. The first person in space could have been Alan Shepard. He had been waiting for his suborbital Mercury flight. Later he said:

  That little race between Gagarin and me was really, really close. Obviously, their objectives and their capabilities for orbital flight were greater than ours at that particular point. We eventually caught up and went past them, but it was the Cold War, there was a competition.

  The first American to fly in space, Alan Shepard waits, fully prepared in his pressure suit, to be loaded into Freedom 7 on May 5, 1961.

  Shepard’s flight was originally scheduled for March 24, but in late January the Kennedy administration received a critical report from a government science advisory group known as the Wiesner Committee. It said there should be an immediate delay in the first manned flight, due in part to the unreliability of the Redstone booster. One of the committee’s heads, George Kistiakowski, even declared that launching Shepard too early would provide the astronaut with: “the most expensive funeral man has ever had.” The Wiesner Report criticized NASA’s manned spaceflight program, which placed pressure on its administrator, James Webb, and Robert Gilruth, who was in charge of manned spaceflight. Consequently, they discussed the flight and told Wernher von Braun and his rocket team that a further unmanned test flight, a so-called “booster development launch,” would have to be made on the date originally set for Shepard’s flight. If it wer
e successful then he would fly on April 25. Von Braun, who had wanted another test of the Redstone, agreed. Whatever the justification, it cost the United States the prize of sending the first person into space. Nineteen days later, a triumphant Soviet Union successfully put the first man into space. The news both shattered and infuriated Alan Shepard. According to the astronauts’ nurse, Dee O’Hara: “Gagarin’s flight made us look like fools. Alan was bitterly disappointed, and I could understand that.”

  America’s First Astronaut

  Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. has perhaps the most remarkable story to tell of all American astronauts. He could trace his New England ancestry back through eight generations to the Mayflower. Born on November 18, 1923, in Derry, New Hampshire, the son of a banker, he graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1944 and saw action in the Pacific aboard the destroyer Cogswell. After the war he gained his aviator’s wings and went on to become a test pilot before his eventual selection as one of the Mercury 7.

  Three weeks after Gagarin’s flight, Shepard finally had his chance, as he recalls:

  The countdown had been running very, very, well. The Redstone rocket checked out well. We had virtually no problems at all and were scheduled for, I believe it was, the second of May. And I was dressed, just about going out the door, when a tremendous rainstorm—thunderstorm—came over and obviously they decided to cancel it, which I was pleased they did. It was rescheduled for three days later, and of course, went through the same routine. The weather was good, and I remember driving down to the launching pad in a van which was capable of providing comfort for us with a pressure suit on and any last-minute adjustments in temperature devices and so on that had to be made; they were all equipped to do that.

  We pulled up in front of the launch pad, of course, it was dark. The liquid oxygen was venting out from the Redstone. Searchlights all over the place. And I remember saying to myself: “Well, I’m not going to see this Redstone again.” And you know, pilots love to go out and kick the tires. It was sort of like reaching out and kicking the tires on the Redstone because I stopped and looked at it, looked back and up at this beautiful rocket, and thought: “Well, okay buster, let’s go and get the job done.” So I sort of stopped and kicked the tires then went on in and on with the countdown.

  There was a time during the countdown when there was a problem with the inverter in the Redstone. Gordon Cooper was the voice communicator in the blockhouse. So he called and said: “This inverter is not working in the Redstone. They’re going to pull the gantry back in, and we’re going to change inverters. It’s probably going to take about an hour, an hour-and-a-half.” And I said: “Well, if that’s the case then I would like to get out and relieve myself.” We had been working with a device to collect urine during the flight that worked pretty well in zero-gravity but it really didn’t work very well when you’re lying on your back with your feet up in the air like you were on the Redstone. And I thought my bladder was getting a little full and, if I had some time, I’d like to relieve myself. So I said: “Gordo, would you check and see if I can get out and relieve myself quickly?” And Gordo came back—it took about three or four minutes—and said, in a German accent: “No,” he says; “Wernher von Braun says: ‘The astronaut shall stay in the nosecone.’” So I said: “Well, all right that’s fine but I’m going to go to the bathroom.” And they said: “Well, you can’t do that because you’ve got wires all over your body and will have short circuits.” I said: “Don’t you guys have a switch that turns off those wires?” And they said: “Yeah, we’ve got a switch.” So I said: “Please turn the switch off.” Well, I relieved myself and of course with a cotton undergarment, which we had on, it soaked up immediately in the undergarment and with 100 percent oxygen flowing through that spacecraft, I was totally dry by the time we launched. But somebody did say something about me being in the world’s first wetback in space.

  Finally Shepard was able to say:

  Roger liftoff and the clock is started. This is Freedom 7, the fuel is go. 1.2 G, cabin at 14 psi. Oxygen is go.

  The capsule separated from the Redstone five minutes later and carried on upward to reach an altitude of 116 miles (187 km). “OK, it’s a lot smoother now,” reported Shepard. “On the periscope what a beautiful view. Cloud cover over Florida, three to four tenths near the eastern coast … I can see Okeechobee. Identify Andrews Island, identify the reefs.” He experienced four minutes and 45 seconds of weightlessness.

  Kennedy Sets a Challenge

  Shepard: We were invited back to Washington after the mission, and I got a nice little medal from the president, and which by the way he dropped. I don’t know whether you remember that scene or not, but Jimmy Webb had the thing in a box and it had been loosened from its little clip, and so as the president made his speech and said: “I now present you the medal,” and he turned around and Webb leaned forward, and the thing slid out of the box and went to the deck, and Kennedy and I both bent over for it. We almost banged heads. Kennedy made it first and he said, in his damn Yankee accent: “Here, Shepard, I give you this medal that comes from the ground up.” Jackie Kennedy is sitting there, she’s mortified and said: “Jack, pin it on him. Pin it on him!” So he then recovered to the point where he pinned the medal on and everything was fine, and we had a big laugh out of that.

  Johnson presented his report to Kennedy five days after Shepard’s flight, calling for an acceleration of US efforts to explore space “to pursue projects aimed at enhancing national prestige.” Then came Kennedy’s State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961.

  I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth. No single space project in this period will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

  Kennedy’s speech was not widely reported in the Soviet media; few in their space program took any notice.

  Shepard: Just three weeks after that mission, 15 minutes in space, Kennedy made his announcement: “Folks, we are going to the Moon, and we’re going to do it within this decade.” After 15 minutes of space time! Now, you don’t think he was excited? You don’t think he was a space cadet? Absolutely, absolutely! People say: “Well, he made the announcement because he had problems with the Bay of Pigs, his popularity was going down.” Not true! When Glenn finished his mission, Glenn, Grissom and I flew with Jack back from West Palm to Washington for Glenn’s ceremony. The four of us sat in his cabin and we talked about what Gus had done, we talked about what John had done, we talked about what I had done. All the way back. People would come in with papers to be signed and he’d say: “Don’t worry, we’ll get to those when we get back to Washington.” The entire flight. I tell you, he was really, really a space cadet. And it’s too bad he could not have lived to see his promise.

  A Second American in Space

  Two months after Alan Shepard’s flight, Gus Grissom performed a similar mission in the Liberty Bell 7 Mercury capsule. It was a straightforward flight until splashdown, when the explosive bolts securing the hatch blew prematurely. There is speculation that Grissom had accidentally armed the bolts when his elbow pressed against a switch. Grissom then had to make a quick exit as Liberty Bell 7 started to sink. As he had not sealed the hose connection on his spacesuit, it started to fill with sea water. Meanwhile, the capsule was tethered to the helicopter but it was also filling with water and getting heavier. A warning light in the helicopter indicated that it was about to flounder and so the pilot ejected the capsule, which sank 3 miles (4.8 km) to the Atlantic Ocean floor, where it remained for 38 years before it was retrieved.

  It was later discovered that the helicopter’s warning light was a false alarm and that the capsule could have been recovered. The capsule is now on display in the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center. There were no clues in the capsule as to why the hatch blew.

  Titov Gets His Chance

  In the Soviet Union, although there were orders f
or the manufacture of more Vostok spacecraft, detailed plans for future missions were rather vague. Unlike the United States, which had a specific series of missions and goals as part of its Mercury project, the Soviet effort was moving forward in a rather haphazard way. It was to be their undoing. Vague plans for the second piloted Vostok flight dated back to early 1961, focusing on a daylong mission.

  Titov, Gagarin’s backup for the first mission, was a natural choice for the flight. For Titov’s backup, the most likely choice would have been Nelyubov, but Titov apparently had been irritated by Nelyubov’s outspoken attitude so he was dropped and Nikolayev became the backup. Three months after Gagarin’s flight, Khrushchev invited Korolev and a number of other prominent space figures to meet with him on a vacation in Crimea. Korolev said that a second Vostok mission was in preparation. Khrushchev added that the launch should occur no later than August 10. Later the reason became clear—the building of the Berlin Wall began on August 13. Khrushchev had wanted to give the socialist world a morale boost during such a tense time.

  As the launch date approached there was some trepidation because of increased radiation resulting from intense solar activity, but it declined in time. On the morning of August 6, Titov blasted off. This time the booster worked as expected, but when Titov entered orbit he was not well. He felt as he was flying upside down and in a “strange fog,” unable to read the instrument panel. On the second orbit he felt worse and thought of asking that the flight be curtailed. He tried eating a little but vomited. He carried out an experiment manually, firing the attitude control jets, but although it went well he still felt terrible, only slightly better than in previous orbits.