are recommending that you leave the retropackage on through the entire reentry. This means that you will have to override the .05G switch expected at 04:43:53. This also means you will have to manually retract the scope. Do you read?”
Glenn’s response was tart. He wanted answers. “Texas,
Caught in the middle, and without the benefit of the discussions in Mercury Control, Texas passed the buck to the Cape. “
When Glenn passed over the Cape during reentry, Shepard calmly recommended the periscope retraction. He then added: “John, while you’re doing that, 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 this type of reentry. Over.” Glenn’s response on hearing it from Shepard was simply, “Roger, understand.”
As the capsule plunges toward the Earth, a sheath of superheated ionized particles surrounds it, causing a communications blackout with the ground stations. This blackout is accompanied by a rapid increase in external temperatures and G (gravity) buildup. The astronaut is literally in the center of a fireball.
Glenn watched as his world turned to a very bright orange as the external temperatures reached toward 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Flaming pieces of metal broke off and passed behind him, and for a moment Glenn had visions that they were chunks of the heat shield, but he could only wait to know for sure. The reentry Gs had him virtually immobilized, his body now weighing seven times his Earth weight.
Exiting communications blackout, the spacecraft started to oscillate, and Glenn tried every control mode. As the oscillations started to diverge, and he could finally lift his arm against the G forces, he reached up to deploy the drogue parachute just as the automatic system sent the command.
We listened in Mercury Control as the final events unfolded. I continued the Teletype and voice briefings for the control teams around the world. It was hard to contain my glee. Today we had put an American in orbit and returned him safely, in spite of a grave and, at the time, a life-threatening uncertainty.
The destroyer
There were a hellacious number of rough spots and much to rethink before the next mission, but this was our day. There was no doubt about the team. Kraft’s Brotherhood had pulled it off. The joyous chatter among the consoles as the controllers stowed their headsets and documents belied the rip-roaring party we would throw that night. I sent the final message to the remote sites. I was damned proud of my guys. They had kept on top of a spacecraft traveling at five miles a second with a low-speed Teletype network. It isn’t equipment that wins the battles; it is the quality and the determination of the people fighting for a cause in which they believe.
And, of course, it was John Glenn’s day.
None of us could have predicted the emotional reaction to John Glenn’s flight: parades in Cape Canaveral, New York, and Washington. Miles of ticker tape. An invitation to speak to Congress. Dinner and touch football with the Kennedys. Half a million letters and telegrams in the first month after his flight. And Glenn tried to answer them all.
He had left college to join the Marines during World War II. He was a decorated hero in Korea, a jet fighter pilot nicknamed “Ol’ Magnet Tail” by his buddies because his plane took so many hits. In 1957 he set a transcontinental speed record for jet aircraft.
Glenn was simply an old-fashioned, star-spangled hero. He spoke of God and country and the flag and the bravery of his fellow astronauts, and he actually meant what he said. Even a cynic like Shorty Powers was moved to say, “This guy is for real. I’d say he’s the most decent human being I’ve ever met.”
The post-mission analysis confirmed that the telemetry reading had been invalid.
John Glenn’s mission was the turning point in Flight Control and in Kraft’s evolution as a flight director. Walt’s direction rankled Kraft, and Kraft vowed never to be placed in a similar position again. Kraft believed his neophyte team was superior to the designers at real-time integrated spacecraft systems analysis. Learning by doing equipped the controllers with a gut-level knowledge of spacecraft design and operations. When this knowledge was combined with the multidisciplinary skills of the mission team and the integrated risk assessments developed through the mission rules, the Flight Control team had the foundation needed to succeed in the new environment of space. Flight Control rapidly became the dominant systems engineering cadre in the U.S. space program.
There was, of course, a remarkable sequel to Glenn’s flight. He retired from the astronaut corps to run for the Senate, withdrawing once after an accident, losing a second race to big money, and getting elected on his third try. No one ever accused John Glenn of being a quitter. He served in the Senate, representing Ohio, then retired after four terms. Thirty-six years after he had made space history he flew again, this time on the Space Shuttle in October 1998. His second flight helped close the chapters in history books that cover the first four decades of America’s space program.
4. THE BROTHERHOOD
Langley Air Force Base, Virginia
By the time of John Glenn’s flight, time was our greatest enemy at NASA. We had to move ahead as quickly as possible because of President Kennedy’s pledge to land a man on the Moon in the 1960s; we also knew that nasty surprises awaited us at every stage in development, no matter how hard we tried to anticipate the most remote contingencies.
Deke Slayton had been selected to fly the second orbital Mercury mission. I had quickly updated the rules based on the Glenn mission and, with the flight planners, was set to give Deke an advance look at the flight rules and the five experiments that had been added. The same scientists who had believed a man’s performance in space would be severely degraded by zero gravity and other factors were now eager to have astronauts perform as many experiments as possible, within the limits of a three-orbit mission. Deke had heard the experiments were coming and voiced his well-founded objections to anyone who would listen. I believed he was right to do so. With only three orbits’ worth of manned experience, most, if not all, of the team felt it was too soon to distract the astronaut with tethered balloons, fluid studies, and a variety of other observations.
I was pulling together a one-page cheat sheet for Slayton on the flight rules, when the word came down that he would be replaced by Scott Carpenter. This news shocked us all, although not nearly as much as it did Deke. I assumed the switch was because he had raised hell about all the added experiments.
But it turned out that Slayton had been scratched because of an irregular heartbeat. The problem, known as idiopathic atrial fibrillation, had been noted when Deke was being tested on the centrifuge (which simulated increased gravity and other stress factors). After an analysis of his data by NASA and Air Force specialists, he was accepted for flight. When it was his turn to fly, the NASA Administrator, James Webb, had his records reviewed for a final time. Three different groups of medical specialists gave their okay—then Webb got three civilian cardiologists from Georgetown University, Washington Hospital Center, and the National Institutes of Health to review his records and give him a brief exam. They recommended his removal from flight status. Moral: if you ask enough people, you’ll find someone who will disagree with the majority and give those nervous about risk a way out. No one doubted Deke’s heart when he was one of the hot test pilots at Edwards Air Force Base, pushing the F-105 to its limits.
Slayton didn’t quit the program. Few expected that he would. His initial assignment placed him as coordinator of the astronaut corps, and his first task involved the selection of the second class of astronauts. In October 1963 he was named the deputy for flight operations, putting him in charge of just about everything that concerned his fellow astronauts. It was a legitimate job and a big one, but you could not avoid suspecting that Deke
