One Small Step Read online

  Now I’m going to lie down and sleep. You can think what you want, but I’m going to sleep.

  Flight rules said he had to keep his helmet on when sleeping but he felt that he might choke if he vomited. So he rigged up a piece of string to jerk open the visor in case of an emergency while sleeping. He overslept by about 30 minutes, waking on his 12th orbit, at the end of which he began to improve. The reentry was as complicated as it had been on Gagarin’s mission; the instrument section again remained attached to the spherical descent capsule. Eventually Titov ejected after a record flight of one day, one hour and 11 minutes.

  An American in Orbit

  In November NASA fished chimpanzee Enos from the Atlantic after he had made the second orbital test of the Mercury capsule. The third suborbital Redstone flight was canceled and the next one would be the more powerful Atlas booster taking John Glenn into orbit. On February 20, 1962, after several attempts, it finally took off. The Atlas booster was unusual in its use of balloon tanks for holding the fuel; these were made from very thin stainless steel with minimal or no rigid support. It was pressure in the tanks due to the fuel that provided the structural rigidity required for flight. In fact an Atlas rocket would collapse under its own weight if not kept pressurized. It needed nitrogen in the tank even when not fueled.

  Astronaut John Glenn climbs into his spacecraft Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962, prior to his launch on the first American manned orbital mission.

  Five minutes after the launch on February 20 Glenn reported:

  Capsule is good. Zero G and I feel fine. Oh that view is tremendous. The capsule is turning around and I can see the booster during turnaround just a couple of hundred yards behind me. It is beautiful.

  Mission Control: Roger, Seven. You have a go at least seven orbits.

  Twenty-seven minutes after launch Glenn traversed the Sahara. He could see some fires down on the ground, long smoke trails right on the edge of the desert. Over the Indian Ocean on the first orbit:

  The sunset was beautiful. It went down very rapidly. I still have a brilliant blue band clear across the horizon almost covering my whole window.

  After 50 minutes concerning orbital night:

  The only unusual thing I have noticed is a rather high, what would appear to be a haze layer, up some seven or eight degrees above the horizon on the night side. The stars I can see through it as they go down toward the real horizon, but it is a very visible single band or layer pretty well up to the normal horizon. This is Friendship 7. I have the Pleiades in sight out here, very clear.

  Then Glenn saw something unusual outside Friendship 7:

  I am in a big mass of some very small particles, they’re brilliantly lit up like they’re luminescent. I never saw anything like it. They round a little: they’re coming by the capsule, and they look like little stars. A whole shower of them coming by. They swirl around the capsule and go in front of the window and they’re all brilliantly lighted.

  A Potential Disaster

  On the third orbit a potentially serious situation occurred. One of the sensors on board Friendship 7 indicated that the spacecraft’s heat shield was loose. If the heat shield was to break away during reentry, Glenn would perish.

  Gene Kranz in Mission Control at Cape Canaveral at the time remembers the incident well as a key moment in the evolution of mission operations:

  What the crew was seeing, we were seeing on board the spacecraft in Mercury. It was only as we moved into Gemini that we recognized the need to move deeper into the spacecraft system. Part of this came about as a result of the John Glenn mission. Because in John Glenn, we were stuck with a very difficult decision. Did his heat shield deploy or did it not? We had a single telemetry measurement that indicated that the heat shield had come loose from the spacecraft. Now, if we believed that measurement and the heat shield had come loose, we had one set of decisions that involved sticking our neck out by retaining the retrorocket package attached during the entry phase. We didn’t know whether it would damage the heat shield. We didn’t know whether we had sufficient attitude control authority. So if the heat shield had come loose and we believed that measurement, we’d go that direction. But if the heat shield had not come loose, that measurement was wrong and we wouldn’t do anything different. So it was a very difficult decision.

  I remember this one very clearly, because the engineers would come and say: “Nah, the heat shield can’t have come loose!” And Chris Kraft would look at them, and he’d say: “Well, how about this measurement we’re seeing? What’s the worst thing that would happen if it had come loose?” And they’d always end up in a position that says: “Well, maybe John Glenn isn’t going to make it home.” “Well then, what are we going to do about it?” So, because of Kraft, this entire business of ground control, I think, really came into being on the Mercury-Atlas 5.

  The Mercury capsule was designed by Max Faget, a brilliant engineer who had been working with NASA since its inception. He remembers:

  Well, this is one thing that I’m kind of proud of, in a way. We considered all possible kinds of failures, and one of the failures that we considered was that the retropack would not jettison. The retropack sat on the heat shield, and it was held by three straps. I thought, well, maybe the damned thing wouldn’t get jettisoned for some reason. So we ran some wind tunnel tests with the retropacks on there. We found out it was stable with the retrorockets on there. So we had these sensors, and the sensors were designed so that if any one sensor said that they had not been opened, it would let you know that. Any sensor that opened would let you know it had been done.

  Apparently we had a bad sensor on that flight, and we thought that the heat shield had been released. Well, the arrangement was such that if the heat shield were released, the straps would have still held it on. So everybody was concerned that the heat shield had been released, because that’s what the instrumentation said. Well, they called me up—I was back in Houston—and asked me what about it, and I said: “Well, you can enter that way because we’ve got wind tunnel data that said the thing will be stable,” and they did.

  Now they had to inform John Glenn on board Friendship 7. Initially they did not tell him the whole story, however.

  Mission Control: This is Texas Cap Com, Friendship 7. We are recommending that you leave the retropackage on through the entire reentry.

  Glenn: This is Friendship 7. What is the reason for this? Do you have any reason? Over.

  Mission Control: None at this time. This is the judgment of Cape Flight.

  An hour later, a few minutes before reentry, they told him:

  We are not sure whether or not your landing bag has deployed. We feel it is possible to reenter with the retropackage on. We see no difficulty at this time with that type of reentry. Over.

  Reentry was a dramatic affair.

  Glenn: My condition is good, but that was a real fireball. Boy. I had great chunks of that retropack breaking off all the way through.

  A Hero Returns

  Glenn became a national hero and had one of the biggest New York tickertape welcomes ever. But it seemed that the flight of Friendship 7 would be his last:

  Well, after my flight I wanted to get back in rotation and go up again. Bob Gilruth, who was running the program at that time, said that he wanted me to go into some areas of management of training and so on, and I said I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to get back in line again for another flight. But he said headquarters wanted it that way, at least for a little while. And I didn’t know what the reason for this was, and I kept going back. Every month or two I’d go back and talk to him again about when do I get back in rotation again, and he’d tell me: “Well, not now. Headquarters doesn’t want you to do this yet.”

  I don’t know whether he was afraid of the political fallout or what would happen if I got bagged on another flight. I don’t know what it was, but apparently he didn’t want me used again right away. So that’s the reason I never got another flight. Bob Gilruth kept saying, we
ll, that he wanted me here in training and management, plus the upcoming flights should go to people who would be useful for the early lunar landings, and that by the time those were expected to occur, I’d be over 50, and that might be a little too old.

  But by a curious twist of fate John Glenn was to get into space again, 36 years later!

  Aurora 7

  Scott Carpenter, John Glenn’s backup for the first US orbital flight, went into space in May. When the prime pilot for the mission after Glenn’s, Deke Slayton, was grounded because of a heart flutter, it was Carpenter and not Slayton’s backup, Wally Schirra, who got the flight. It was bad luck for Slayton who, had the original flight schedule been adhered to, would have become the first American to orbit the Earth. The flight of Aurora 7 has been unfairly criticized as a poor flight. It was planned to be a scientific mission as well as conducting the most thorough workout of the Mercury capsule to date. However, various malfunctions resulted in the need for frequent attitude corrections and a heavy use of fuel. Carpenter also made a serious error by not turning off the automatic orientation system when he switched to manual control prior to reentry, which resulted in a critical waste of fuel. Further malfunctions and the low level of fuel meant that when Carpenter did align Aurora 7 correctly for retrofire, it was five seconds too late. Reentry itself was dramatic, with the capsule oscillating wildly. It overshot the landing zone by 250 miles (402 km). Carpenter left NASA shortly afterward.

  TIMELINE

  1961 April 25 Mercury-Atlas rocket lifts off with an electronic mannequin

  May 5 Astronaut Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. becomes the first American in space, making a 15-minute suborbital flight in the Freedom 7 Project Mercury capsule

  May 25 President John F. Kennedy makes a pledge to put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade

  July 21 Captain Virgil “Gus” Grissom becomes the second American in space, flying in the Mercury Liberty Bell 7

  August 6 Russian cosmonaut Gherman Titov circles the Earth 17 times in a 25-hour flight in Vostok 2

  September 13 An unmanned Mercury capsule orbits the Earth and is recovered by NASA in a test for the first manned Mercury flight

  October 27 The first Saturn launch vehicle makes an unmanned flight

  November 29 Chimpanzee makes orbital flight in the Mercury capsule

  1962 February 20 Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn Jr. becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, making three orbits in Friendship 7

  May 24 Scott Carpenter aboard Aurora 7 becomes the second American to orbit the Earth

  “Gagarin in a skirt”

  THE FEMALE FACE OF THE COSMOS

  VALENTINA TERESHKOVA—VOSTOK 6

  1962–1963

  During late 1962 and early 1963, in an attempt to regain the headlines, the Russians planned a number of high-profile missions: the first multiple mission and the longest flight. The most eye-catching was putting the first woman into space—this was achieved on June 16, 1963, with the flight of Valentina Tereshkova. Meanwhile the Americans impressively flew two more Mercury missions, completing the program at six manned missions.

  The future plans of the Soviet Union depended upon Korolev’s unwritten rule that each mission be a significant advance over the previous one, although there was no overarching plan. One month after Titov’s troubled flight, Korolev proposed a dramatic mission—three Vostok spacecraft, each with a single cosmonaut, to be launched on three successive days. The first pilot would conduct a three-day mission, while the two others would be in space for two or three days. On one of those days, all three spacecraft would be in space. But others were not convinced about the viability of the project, and Korolev was forced to reduce the plan to two Vostok craft, launched by January 1962 at the earliest.

  The First Women Cosmonauts

  Meanwhile, the Central Committee had approved the hiring of 60 new cosmonaut trainees, including five women: Tatyana D. Kuznetsova, age 20; Valentina L. Ponomareva, age 28; Irina B. Solovyeva, age 24; Valentina V. Tereshkova, age 24; and Zhanna D. Yerkina, age 22. Solovyeva had 900 parachute jumps to her credit, followed by Tereshkova with 78, and Ponomareva with ten. Although Ponomareva was clearly the most accomplished pilot, Gagarin opposed her inclusion because she was a mother. Another candidate, Tereshkova, did not have any academic honors but had been an active member of the local Young Communist League.

  The three female Russian cosmonauts selected for Vostok 6: (from left to right) Valentina Ponomareva and Irina Solovyeva (both backups), and Valentina Tereshkova—who was ultimately to be the first woman to fly in space on June 16, 1963.

  The publicity surrounding Glenn’s launch had not gone unnoticed in the USSR. Military-industrial Commission Chairman Ustinov called Korolev on February 7, just days before Glenn’s flight, and ordered the dual Vostok launch in mid-March. In his diary Kamanin commented on the foolishness of making decisions in such a way:

  This is the style of our leadership. They’ve been doing nothing for almost half a year and now they ask us to prepare an extremely complex mission in just ten days’ time. The program of which has not even been agreed upon.

  Fortunately a rocket failure at Baikonur forced a much-needed delay to the dual Vostok mission.

  A Surprise Second Launch

  Cosmonauts Nikolayev and Popovich were the obvious candidates for the two missions. One of the few bachelors in the team, the 32-year-old Nikolayev began his career as a lumberjack before later joining the Soviet air force, receiving his pilot’s wings in 1954. Popovich, also 32, had enjoyed a distinguished career in the Soviet air force before receiving the Order of the Red Star for an assignment in the Arctic. His wife Marina was one of the most accomplished women test pilots in the USSR.

  On August 11 Nikolayev took off. Korolev was so nervous throughout the ascent phase that he held tightly to the red telephone with which he would give the order to abort the mission in case of a booster failure. Khrushchev spoke to Nikolayev four hours into the mission, and the world saw Nikolayev smile on television. As Vostok 3 passed over Baikonur at 11:02 a.m. a day later, Vostok 4 climbed after it. It was the first time that more than one piloted spacecraft, or indeed more than one human, had been in orbit. Western media was surprised by the second launch, speculating that there would be a docking. There was talk that the mission was a rehearsal for a Moon flight, but watchful commentators noticed that this was not a true rendezvous, just two spacecraft launched into similar orbits, neither of which could be altered. Both Vostoks fired their retrorockets within six minutes of each other on August 15. Nikolayev landed after a three-day, 22-hour and 22-minute flight, during which he had circled Earth 64 times. Popovich landed 125 miles (200 km) away after a two-day, 22-hour and 57-minute flight, and 48 orbits.

  Korolev breathed a sigh of relief. His political masters were satisfied, but his health was worsening. He had been in poor condition for many years; the effects of the privations of the labor camps had never left him. His busy work schedule aggravated matters—working 18 hours a day for several weeks on end was common. He found it hard to delegate, often involving himself in trivial matters he should have left to others. Soon after the return of the twin Vostoks he suffered intestinal bleeding. After a stay in the hospital, he was ordered to take a holiday at the seaside resort of Sochi, but he took his work with him and was constantly on the telephone.

  “Fireflies” on the Sigma 7 Mercury Flight

  The Mercury program was gaining momentum with the launch of Walter Schirra in the Sigma 7 capsule in October 1962. He intended to fly a technically perfect mission:

  Schirra: Not to criticize John and Scott, but the mission was designed to have a chimpanzee in there. They replaced the chimp. But that meant they had to have a lot of automatic maneuvers. Automatic maneuvers took a tremendous amount of attitude control fuel. I said: “I don’t want to do that. I just want to save that.” And as a result, I ended up, I think, about retrofire, about 80 percent of my attitude fuel was still remaining.

  As
water came out of the spacecraft it froze instantaneously into one snowflake, but a very tiny, tiny snowflake. These stuck on the outside of the spacecraft. They drifted around. This was what John called fireflies, is what Scott got involved with banging the spacecraft and watching them come off. And as a result, both of them lost sight of the fact they had to have fuel enough to fly the mission. John got a little wrapped up; I did, too, because I was his Capcom in California, on the retro-rocket package that had to be kept on because of a false signal that said his heat shield had detached, when in fact it turned out it had not. But at any rate, that became kind of a traumatic part of John’s mission. But in both cases, they almost ran out of attitude control fuel; and that kind of shook me up, because there’s no reason to do that. In fact, I alienated some of the flight controllers because, after drifting for a while, I put it back into automatic control. I’m in chimp mode now; it didn’t go over too well.

  End of the Mercury Missions

  The final Mercury flight occurred in May 1963 when the relaxed Gordon Cooper flew in his capsule Faith 7. He had to endure what was becoming a common problem on Mercury flights—spacesuit overheating. The flight was nevertheless going well and he remarked how much detail he could see down on the ground. He deployed a flashing beacon from the nose of his capsule to test how far he could see it—an important procedure for future rendezvous missions. Then there was trouble, as he later described: