The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

best people. Willy Mrazek oversaw the Jupiter-C’s propulsion system, just as he had the prototype A-4 in Germany. Walter Haeussermann’s guidance and control laboratory had perfected the booster’s inertial guidance, and Haeussermann was there that day for the final premission tuning. Ernst Stuhlinger, head of the research projects office, did the troubleshooting at the Cape. Overall command of the test launch was under Kurt Debus and his missile firing laboratory. Debus had supervised hundreds of V-2 launches in Germany and New Mexico.

All day, strong winds delayed the launch as the Jupiter-C sat on the concrete platform of Launch Pad 5, supported by a flame-blasted Redstone gantry tower. Von Braun’s tone on the telephone showed how anxious he was, but he trusted his colleagues too much to interfere.

Then, at 10:48 pm, Debus completed the countdown and issued the ignition command from the firing bunker. The striped cylindrical payload package was “spun up” like a captive toy to stabilize the upper stage in flight. An orange glare ripped out as the Jupiter-C’s Redstone first stage roared to life. For several seconds flame blasted sideways from the Jupiter as it stood stationary on the pad.

Then the rocket climbed away into the darkness. Two and a half minutes later the upper stages were separated by an automatic timer. For the next six minutes the payload coasted higher to an apex 225 miles above the Atlantic. Walter Haeussermann’s guidance package worked perfectly. The second-stage cluster of solid rockets was brought parallel to the Earth’s surface by small thruster jets. Stuhlinger transmitted the command to ignite the second stage. After six and a half seconds, he ignited the third stage, comprised of three clustered Sergeants. Finally, he pressed the amber fourth-stage ignition button and the single-Sergeant satellite kicker motor ignited, accelerating Explorer to over 18,000 miles per hour, orbital velocity.

Medaris had insisted on a media blackout to prevent embarrassment if the mission failed and to keep down speculation about interservice rivalry. [Despite two Sputniks and the multiple Vanguard failures, the Navy was still in the satellite game.] No reporters were there to watch the delayed countdown and the spectacular launch. Residents of nearby Titusville and Cocoa Beach simply thought another secret missile was being tested. Two hundred and twenty-five miles above West Africa, the tiny Explorer satellite glided silently through the day-night terminator line and into brilliant sunlight. The satellite was the size of an overgrown titanium milk bottle and weighed only 10.5 pounds. To achieve orbit, Explorer’s centrifugal energy would have to counter-balance Earth’s gravity.

The first American listening station positioned to receive the radio beacon from a properly orbiting Explorer was the Goldstone tracking site in the California desert. Signals should have begun coming in at exactly 12:41 Pentagon. Pickering was on the phone with his people in California as the deadline passed. There was no signal from Explorer.

“Why the hell don’t you hear anything?” Pickering yelled.

Secretary Brucker looked up from a table littered with coffee cups and overflowing ashtrays.

“Wernher,” he asked, “what happened?”

Von Braun watched the sweeping second hand on the wall of the communications room. If they didn’t get a signal in 10 minutes, he would have to consider the mission a failure.

At 12:49 am, Pickering whooped with joy, holding the receiver against his shoulder Goldstone had Explorer’s signal. Von Braun beamed, then frowned. “She is eight minutes late,” he muttered. “Interesting.”

A duty officer telephoned President Eisenhower’s vacation retreat in Augusta, Georgia. Ike excused himself from his late-night bridge table to take the call, then recorded a radio announcement, reading calmly from a single sheet.“ The United States has successfully placed a scientific Earth satellite in orbit around the Earth. This is part of our participation in the International Geophysical Year.”

Politicians in the opposing Democratic Party noticed the “space gap”. In April 1958 President Eisenhower passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 (“the Space Act”) which declared that “activities in space should be devoted to peaceful purposes for the benefit of all mankind.” It further declared “that such activities shall be the responsibility of, and shall be directed by, a civilian agency”. The Act further established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to be the “civilian agency”, which should seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the fullest commercial use of space.

Its aims were to contribute materially to one or more of the following objectives:

(1) The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;

(2) the improvement of the usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles;

(3) the development and operation of vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies, and living organisms through space;

(4) the establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the utilization of aeronautical and space activities for peaceful and scientific purposes;

(5) the preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere;

(6) the making available to agencies directly concerned with national defense of discoveries that have military value or significance, and the furnishing by such agencies, to the civilian agency established to direct and control nonmilitary aeronautical and space activities, of information as to discoveries which have value or significance to that agency;

(7) cooperation by the United States with other nations and groups of nations in work done pursuant to this Act and in the peaceful application of the results thereof;

(8) the most effective utilization of the scientific and engineering resources of the United States, with close cooperation among all interested agencies of the United States in order to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort, facilities, and equipment; and

(9) the preservation of the United States preeminent position in aeronautics and space through research and technology development related to associated manufacturing processes.

(e) The Congress declares that the general welfare of the United States requires that the unique competence in scientific and engineering systems of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration also be directed toward ground propulsion systems research and development. Such development shall be conducted so as to contribute to the objectives of developing energy-and petroleum-conserving ground propulsion systems, and of minimizing the environmental degradation caused by such systems.

(f) The Congress declares that the general welfare of the United States requires that the unique competence of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in science and engineering systems be directed to assisting in bioengineering research, development, and demonstration programs designed to alleviate and minimize the effects of disability.

The head of NASA was the administrator, T. Keith Glennan, who asked for von Braun’s team to become part of the new agency. Whereas von Braun’s team and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) had been responsible for putting Explorer into orbit, the United States put Explorer II and Vanguard I into orbit in 1958.

But Sputnik III weighed over 3,000 pounds. Krushchev mocked the tiny US satellites the “size of oranges”.

It was clear to President Eisenhower that the Soviet successes were harming his administration’s political reputation and he wanted the Air Force’s Atlas to put a “spacecraft” into orbit, insisting that the prototypes be launched by normal ICBMs first. The Atlas was the product of innovative US development, completely independent of the V-2, but it wasn’t ready.

Buzz Aldrin described the launch of the Atlas prototype:

On December 18, 1958, the Air Force launched the Atlas prototype 10B from Launch Pad 11 at the Cape. Following the secret flight plan, the missile’s internal guidance system pitched the Atlas over parallel to the Atlantic at an altitude of 110 miles and the sustainer engine burned up the remaining tons of propellant. Five minutes later