had been given a consolation prize.
In the trenches at Mercury Control, we probably felt the strongest empathy for him, and for the time and energy he had spent training for a day that was now gone from the calendar and might never come again. He would be cleared ten years later and would finally make it into space as part of NASA’s joint venture with the Russians. But for now, he was the first of the Mercury astronauts to be washed out, and the controllers could not view that setback with indifference.
Scott Carpenter, the backup for Glenn’s mission, was a virtual unknown to most of the controllers. When Scott was given the nod, we were surprised because we had been expecting Wally Schirra, Slayton’s backup, to replace Deke. The mission was rescheduled to accommodate the change in crewman, and additional attitude control tests were added to the flight plan. Glenn’s mission had finally cleared the way for astronauts having hands-on control of the spacecraft in flight. John had not experienced any disorientation, and his troubleshooting of the attitude control problems demonstrated the value of having a human in control of the spacecraft at critical moments. Carpenter’s flight plan was expanded to permit him to perform maneuvers to observe sunrise and sunset, fly upside down to test pilot disorientation, and conduct visual observations of Earth and space phenomena.
We had reached another milestone; two teams were working in concert, more or less, the man in the capsule and the crews in the control room. Both sides were—understandably—a little wary of the scientists.
Now the earthbound Slayton had nearly as much in common with our Flight Control team as his own astronaut corps. We in Mercury Control were like the second-string team in football, who scrimmaged all week and took the banging, but didn’t get to make the road trips. Each time a rocket lifted off the pad, we felt pride and elation… and a little envy.
We did not mingle socially with the astronauts. Even if that had seemed a desirable thing to do, none of us had the time. When the astronauts were not in nearly nonstop training, they were flying or racing their sports cars or making public appearances to promote the space program. But as our Mercury Control team acquired as much, if not more, knowledge about the spacecraft as those who would fly them, each mission brought both sides closer together in mutual confidence—and we felt a more personal link with the crews.
The first Mercury orbital mission had been at the core of our lives in the winter of 1961. Now, in the early months of 1962, Gilruth’s newly designated Manned Spacecraft Center was moving to Houston amid a massive reorganization. This new NASA center was charged with the design, development, and flight operations for the newly formed Gemini and Apollo programs. In July 1960 NASA had announced plans to follow Mercury with a program to fly to the Moon. The program was subsequently called Apollo. The Gemini Program, which started in 1961, would bridge the technology gap between the Mercury missions and the far more ambitious Apollo lunar program. In 1962 the MSC was in a period of unprecedented growth and change. It departed the Langley Field facilities with a staff of 750. With the staff more than doubling each year it would increase to 6,000 at the beginning of Gemini operations in 1964. This rapid growth necessitated corresponding changes in the Flight Operations Division. Chuck Mathews, the FOD division chief, was reassigned by Gilruth to form a Spacecraft Research Division to develop the design requirements and the technologies needed for the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft. Chris Kraft replaced Mathews as the FOD chief. John Hodge, the Bermuda flight director, then formed a Flight Control Operations Branch. This branch had the responsibility for the mission rules development and the remote site teams and the MCC systems controllers. Hodge selected me as deputy chief. My role as his deputy did not last long. Two months later Kraft selected Hodge as his assistant, and I became the branch chief for Flight Control Operations. I now had the resources I needed to develop an operations team that was fully capable of taking any actions needed during the course of a mission.
As we were preparing for Carpenter’s flight, Chris Kraft relocated to his temporary offices at the Houston Petroleum Center on the Gulf Freeway. His staff, however, remained at Langley, starting their relocation in the summer of 1962, during the interval between the flights now assigned to Carpenter and Schirra. Many drove with their families from Virginia to Cape Canaveral for Carpenter’s flight, towing rental trailers containing all they possessed. After the mission, they continued on to Houston.
As the space program was rapidly expanding, more land was needed to house people and test the systems being developed. In and around Houston, we had access to water—in the Gulf of Mexico and even at Clear Lake—so we could do drop-testing of the capsules. A key factor in determining the new site was the proximity of colleges and universities, a talent pool from which we could recruit newly graduated engineers and scientists for the rapidly expanding program. (It should also be noted that Houston was in the congressional district of Albert Thomas, the chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that oversaw NASA’s budget. He and Vice President Johnson were loyal sons of Texas and highly effective advocates for Houston’s suitability as the location for the new Manned Spacecraft Center.)
As a result, in the early years of space, many of my controllers were out of educational institutions in Texas and the Southwest, not the colleges in the Northeast that supplied many of those in the original Space Task Group. We had a few from as far north as Purdue, but they came in waves off the campuses of Texas A&M, the University of Texas, Rice University, and Lamar Tech (in nearby Beaumont).
Tec Roberts, already in Houston, was designing the new Mission Control Center for Gemini and Apollo. Glynn Lunney had stepped in as his replacement as the flight dynamics officer for the remaining Mercury missions. Glynn was the pioneer leader of trajectory operations, who turned his craft from an art practiced by few into a pure science. In the early years, I envied him for his ability to rapidly absorb complex materials and find alternatives. We competed for the leadership role, Glynn pointing the way through his remarkable grasp of the entire complex picture, while I focused on structure and team building.
Carl Huss, one of our math wizards, was training the remote site controller John Llewellyn as his replacement, and Arnold Aldrich was brought in from remote site systems to relieve Walt Kapryan at the systems console. Eighteen months after our first baby step into the world of space flight, the Mercury pioneers were sliding into new jobs and their successors were entering the fray.
In the midst of the preparation for the launch of Carpenter’s
Manfred (Dutch) Von Ehrenfried was a new recruit who joined us as a procedures officer in time for the Glenn mission. He had been teaching high school physics when President Kennedy set the lunar goal and was itching for a piece of the action. Trying to avoid an unnecessary trip to Houston, I called him into my office and decided to give him a real test.
“Dutch, we have to get settled quickly in Houston,” I advised him. “We need good, cheap housing with low down payments. Scout around and find the best place to live. We can’t afford more than a $250 down payment.”
Dutch did not own a home in Virginia and was as eager as any of us to get his family resettled. He did well as a real estate scout and, during the interval between missions, ten families moved into houses he picked out on Welk and Regal drives, an area in southeast Houston that came to be known in the early 1960s as Flight Controller Alley.
President Kennedy had challenged us to go to the Moon and dispel any doubts of America’s leadership, technology, and spirit. The colleges and universities responded. By the spring of 1962, we were flooded with job applications from a generation of young people drawn to the cause.
The newly created Manned Spacecraft Center more than doubled in size, from 750 staffers to 1,800, in three months. Mel Brooks and Jim Hannigan were the first two engineers I hired. Slightly older than the average controller, they had the savvy I needed to lead the young graduates through Mercury and into Gemini.
Hannigan had been a flight test engineer for the Air Force. Brooks, an infantry veteran of the Korean War, had worked with the satellite control of the Air Force’s Agena upper-stage rocket, which had been selected as the Gemini rendezvous target. They were the first to relocate to Flight Controller Alley and were pressed immediately into service. Hannigan was selected as a CapCom assigned to the Kano, Nigeria, site, while Brooks led the training section for the final Mercury missions.
