THE MASTERY OF SPACE

[Music] [Music] know him you should he's a human being in the process of being naturally wonderful human reacting to a world a universe full of question marks full of things to be curious about to be proud [Music] he's Columbus looking for a shortcut to the Indies and stumbling over America giving his name thereby to a country the city's town squares circles at a district and he's himself a small boy curious and question running along the sidewalk drawn towards a building whose marquee tells him that inside he can see a visual story an exhibit about the newest ocean space actually the oldest ocean of course newest and only now have we the vessels to carry new Columbus's when a vessel is only a machine and a machine can do only what it's human designer in advance prepared it to do an escalator can only carry us to the second floor it can't tell us if we're going to like what we find that only the human mechanism has the power of reason sensitive and flexible to evaluate and react quickly and usefully to the unexpected the unpredicted and the unpredictable so we hurl our sounding lines and probes up into this ocean and we lace its floor our home with satellite orbits but in the end to master the ocean the question mark of space no machine no instrument no substitute us will do we ourselves must go into space [Music] can you imagine being weightless not feeling the pressure of that chair under you if you were here you wouldn't have to imagine weightlessness would be a fact of life as real as your swinging around the world once every 90 minutes 17,500 miles an hour five miles a second each dot alive San Francisco to New York in ten minutes even as the teletypes around the world pick up the news we wonder what being in orbit is life [Music] black and the stars are bright and steady [Music] [Music] promotion pictures taken through the periscope of a mercury spacecraft in orbit 100 miles up and shown here at 48 times normal speed we know that the earth is blue and green and tan and streaked with white cloud and if when the clouds breaking up the noonday Sun is reflected like a gold coin on the sea 100 miles below us and the land and the oceans appear as they do on our Maps and at less than 30 minutes after seeing noon below us we can watch the night rising to meet us over the Indian Ocean a 90-minute day and we know about weightlessness most of us indirectly but not all of us and for a very few of it not just 13 seconds or so of weightlessness as part of our training as astronauts but the real thing this is astronaut Alan Shepard in freedom 7 now watch the strap just below his left shoulder there he's weightless balanced between up and down as free from the pull of gravity from G's as this loose end of his harness strap what's it like here is Shepards comment it's quite a pleasant sensation particularly so after the accelerations of the booster ride we find that we have no difficulty in maneuvering ourselves and all in all really is at this point certainly no difficulty at all but a Shepard implied it is an all Pleasant this is eccentric unity I'm not particularly merry-go-round and here is astronaut Gus Grissom undergoing what we might for contrast call weightless acceleration induced high G loading [Music] to help him sustain this hygiene loading the sharp increase in body weight during liftoff and reentry each astronaut sat for his portrait in plaster to form a mold from which a precisely contoured fiberglass couch could be fashioned as personalized as his fingerprint the couch conforming exactly to the shape of his body would fully support him regardless of the acceleration stresses imposed in the centrifuge rides these stresses are imposed in a distinct pattern a profile which parallels and simulates precisely the pattern formed by the sequence of events which takes place in an actual space flight except of course for weightlessness first liftoff the centrifuge start simulating the acceleration of the applet [Music] Beco or booster engine cutoff takes place two minutes after liftoff the escape tower is jettison altitude 40 miles acceleration stress 6g acceleration stress more than seven and a half G's Seco sustainer engine cutoff 100 miles up five minutes after liftoff the capsule separates from the athletes nudged by three small positive a rocket G loading on the astronaut zero weightless the automatic control system fires Jets of gas to stop any unusual rolling pitching or yoi [Music] then the spacecraft is turned 180 degrees putting the heat shield forward tilted up 34 degrees speed orbital 17,500 miles an hour [Music] after three orbits the retro or braking Rockets are fired the spacecraft is slowed by only about 350 miles an hour but enough to cause it to drop out of orbit 40 seconds later the retro pack is released and drops away the spacecraft is then placed in the re-entry attitude a degree and a half nose down it descends gradually for about eight minutes it begins to feel the first braking effect of the Earth's atmosphere altitude about 55 miles temperature on the heat shield 3000 degrees Fahrenheit altitude 25 miles speed nearly 15,000 miles an hour deceleration stress mounting towards seven and a half G's again as the spacecraft slows from 17,500 miles an hour at an altitude of 55 miles to 270 miles an hour at an altitude of 12 miles all in a little over five minutes at just under four miles 21,000 feet the braking or drogue parachute is released a few seconds later at 10,000 feet the main chute open 12 seconds later the impact bag is free and the spacecraft touches down at about 20 miles an hour G loading returns to the normal earthbound 1g the centrifuge stops the astronaut has learned something of how he should function during each phase of the stress profile in turn the scientists learn from their post exposure interviews about things their instruments can't tell them you've written both sea-level and altitude G rods G rides now which do you really notice any particular effect of the altitude runs as compared to the sea level runs on your breathing well know very little I know we've had some discussion about this in the past and we have different opinions on that I happen to be one just doesn't particularly notice much difference in breathing between sea level and altitude I seem to use the same breathing patterns the same straining patterns I don't notice much difference at all I'm very interested in the sustained G runs did you notice any change in the difficulty of breathing as a sustained G run progressed well no and I was looking for changes too just like that and I didn't seem to notice much difference in it I hit my G plateau the 92nd plateau and set up my breathing pattern or had already established before we got there really and this seemed to hold pretty much through the run and I didn't need to very at any at all now of course with it being a 90 second plateau I think the patterns would undoubtedly change if we went to a longer plateau because you would be coming more be becoming more tired and you would undoubtedly change your position or change your straining pattern to accommodate the tired muscles if you went to a five minute run or ten minute run but during the minute and a half run as we did today which is longer than any entry we know of - really for Jesus these levels I didn't change my breathing technique at all thanks for the summary John I know you're gonna catch a plane here shortly acceleration and deceleration with time swarm only one of the profiles met by the astronauts as they train for space astronaut Wally schirra pressure suited as he would be for an actual flight undergoes the seven and a half hour exposure to a simulator profile in which interior temperature humidity and barometric pressure are buried with time sitting there are some hazards with sitting for seven 1/2 hours as you know did you follow any any routine in particular did you do as we ask them flex your ankles move your toes strain at the calf I felt I had to do that you do feel cramped as you today I'm Restless this is of course quite different than our normal attitude we'll be on our back almost in a prone position I know so that it's easier to move your legs as I am right now in a seated condition because you can just swing your legs but on your back you have to lift your legs and flex your muscles although it your advice deflection is a darn good tip while I during this simulated mission divided into parts for responding to the question consider first liftoff and the orbital parts of the mission at that point all you have to do is is just maintain comfort control were you able to do that the coolant valve settings that we were playing with in orbit sure proved lot to me because the intercom system was telling me what my student my temperature was and what the suit at left wizened looks like I like about 68 to 70 degrees good now the harder part of the course is the reentry phase where the inner skin walls of the the capsule approach two hundred ninety degrees Fahrenheit then with this surface that hot so close to you inches away were you able to perceive this temperature only by radiation I could feel the heat from the panels coming up on my cheeks through the clear section of the visor plate and this was a very low order of heat I'd say like a nice sunny day out in the beach was entirely comfortable oh yes I also noticed on my hand with the black leather surface facing the heat of the capsule wall that the heat was build up on the black yet when I had the silver side toward it it was very very comfortable and it's only proved that the reflective qualities of the silver surfaces really worth having and for yet another kind of profile we have the procedures trainer in which at the option of the instructor nearly all of the conditions of an actual flight can be simulated including the unexpected which each astronauts reflexes impel him to deal with quickly calmly and accurately astronaut Leroy G Cooper floats in the orbital flight simulator as though he didn't much care of school kept or not but this is school the subject controlling and balancing by means of gentle and delicately time Jets aver a nastily unstable replica of an uninhibited spacecraft in flight but this device is a real lady compared to mastiff master known otherwise is the multiple axis space test inertia facility designed to throw the astronaut violently into any attitude conventional or otherwise that the real spacecraft may assume in space but like the spacecraft mass tip also can be made to behave quite decently by a trained hand and so with simulators of various kinds of profiles and specialized activity trainers [Music] with sessions in the classroom treating the physics of reaction engines problems of navigation in space the science of astronomy space biology guidance systems the mathematics of ballistics sprucing up and adding to their own prior college training in engineering in the sciences and with the study of such eminently practical subjects as how to get out of the spacecraft via the emergency route on the water and via the regular route under it [Music] and how to survive in the desert using the main parachute for shelter and to form a properly Bedouin like headdress if by some mischance the spacecraft should come down on land rather than on water and with continued flights in high-performance aircraft to keep reaction time short and reflexes accidents with all of this the seven astronauts prepare as a team to challenge space and throughout the United States stand many thousand times these seven supporting building preparing with them here for example at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center Huntsville Alabama where built the Redstone launch vehicles used to boost astronauts Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom on their suborbital flights into history while two thousand miles away near San Diego California the Atlas boosters used for the mercury orbital flights are assembled their inner complexity disguised by The Shining simplicity of their outer surfaces the power of the atlas engine developing 360,000 pounds of thrust capable of pushing the mercury spacecraft fast enough and high enough to inject it into its 17,500 mile an hour 100 to 160 mile high orbit given this power this speed this distance we were also given an upper limit to the weight the vehicle can carry so the Atlas played a part in determining the size and shape of the astronaut no more than 5 feet 11 inches tall no more than 180 pounds and of his spacecraft but other things to help to put a fix on the shape of the mercury spacecraft for example 5,000 hours just to two and a half man years with the shape be stable as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere or would it tumble would it form a well-defined Shakman to carry away some of the friction heat generated by the wind rushing past it at 15,000 miles an hour a wind that creates enough heat to melt rock to lava to make it fall like rain a wind that drives the heat shield of 3000 degrees Fahrenheit a thousand degrees hotter than this in all starting two years before Project Mercury officially began 70 model shapes were tested this one for example was unstable while this one although more stable was structurally weak and heavy this stable and stronger reflects consideration of interior requirements and leads logically to this much more familiar shape in which stability space and structure are well met and then the final shape topped with a narrow end to carry the antenna and the braking or drogue parachute and to form a seat for the escape rocket tower so we have the spacecraft about 6 feet across at its widest end the end with the heat shield and breaking rock and just short of 10 feet tall not counting the escape Tower [Music] it's outside surface is covered with corrugated shingles of nickel cobalt alloy on a dime to allow for expansion as they become cherry red hot during the spacecraft's plunge through the atmosphere [Music] inside the astronaut within an inner pressurized vessel of titanium and his full pressure suit the base of the spacecraft is the heat shield shape to protect him during reentry he sits supported by a fiberglass couch with his back to the heat shield he can look out of a rectangular window that slopes down in front of him while directly in front of him is his instrument panel and a large lens on which the area seen by his periscope is displayed just above and left of the lens is an earth path indicator constantly showing the astronaut his ground position on a tiny globe and his landing point above the earth path indicator our panel displays telling the astronaut whether the spacecraft is oriented properly and which way to move it if it isn't with all he has about the same room as he'd have in the cockpit of a typical fighter plane enough for himself and perhaps a small boy [Music] with his ratchet of the spacecraft and with his left he can twist the grip to fire the escape rockets pulling the spacecraft clear of the booster in an emergency like this [Music] [Applause] with the spacecraft high enough for safety exploding bulks fire and the escape tower pulls free then the small drogue chute is released to slow and stabilize the spacecraft descent then the much larger main parachute screams out at first week too slow the descent further and lessen the shock of the shoots opening for a test for stitching together with thousands of others to form the fabric of safety and protection so basic to mercury planning for example the escape rocket in an earlier test with the elements rigidly held for study and the three small pots a great Rockets mounted between the larger breaking rockets in the retro pack and used to separate the spacecraft from the Atlas and another to check out the all-important retro rocket and the exploding bolts to release the band's holding the retro pack against the heat shield freeing the pack to drop away after use and a test of the heat shield itself and the landing or impact folded between the heat shield and the base of the spacecraft during flight then freed at 10,000 feet is the main shoot stream to soften the impact of land then the flight test [Music] the Little Joe series from Wallops Island Virginia testing spacecraft performance and the escape system and Big Joe for a 15,000 mile an hour check on the behavior of the spacecraft at high speed and particularly of the heat shield during reentry and have our first astro chimp blazing the redstone sub-orbital trail for Alan Shepard and the flight of freedom surfer [Music] looked at mechanically and analytically the flight of Alan Shepard on the morning of May 5th 1961 could be described as a test to check the performance of the early design Brown windowed spacecraft in ballistic flight just as Gus Grissom's trip two and a half months later could be considered a test to qualify the final rectangular windowed and otherwise matured spacecraft under the same or similar flight condition mechanically and analytically yes but do you feel as though you were watching just another flight test [Music] [Applause] Roger periscope has retracted faster to get rain bus 24 volts 26 amps [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right liftoff and the clock has started and it had not only for Shepard and freedom seven climbing the clear bright air above Cape Canaveral for the airless space beyond not only for the recovery forces now rallying at the predicted impact point to pluck him in a spacecraft from the sea but for the United States manned space flight program as well [Music] a test yes of a man a machine a system a program and a nation the clock carefully built carefully set had indeed started [Music] but care didn't stop with the starting of the clock any more than training her teamwork or testing did she's in plastic the spacecraft arrives at Cape Canaveral [Music] workmen assemble each spacecraft taking every possible precaution against contaminating it with dust or metal particles that could cause a failure the fiberglass contoured couch is installed the retrorockets are checked [Music] the Atlas is carried on a special trailer to pad 14 [Music] and then is slowly and carefully raised to its position in the gantry a plastic sheet protects the upper surface of the adapter which forms the topmost section of the Atlas and provides the seat for the base of the spacecraft then the spacecraft for mating with the athletes the adapter is checked for the last time and then the spacecraft is cautiously lifted to the 11th level swung gently in above the adapter and then lowered into position [Music] then finally the escape tower hoisted and place care and from care assurance and calm John Glenn neither more nor less outstanding than carpenter his backup man then Cooper or Grissom or schirra or Shepherd or Slayton rather thrust into singular distinction at least in part by the simple arithmetic fact that out of seven only one can be first to orbit we'd had our holes of course on previous launch attempts we were asked how the delays affected our readiness i think scott carpenter put it in probably the best light when he said I was the most fortunate one around with all his excitement going on because all I had to do it was sit back and just hone the edge a little more and keep in good shape [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] but they on the 20th though that morning as the weather started to clear and we could see the big blue holes coming up I really felt that we were in a go condition at that time because the booster was ready and everyone I think sort of gets to go fever when you get get all conditions set right I think everyone was excited that morning [Music] go ahead whereby all tapes have been removed I want to keep that business to the east and around the world the mercury tracking network Bermuda the mid-atlantic ship brand canary island Kano Nigeria Zanzibar and the Indian Ocean ship mouche near Perth in Western Australia will burrow in the Bleak Australian desert cats an island in the mid Pacific the Hawaiian station on the island of Kauai Point Hartwell oh in California limas Mexico plus radars at White Sands New Mexico Corpus Christi Texas and Eglin Air Force Base Florida all feeding information to the computers at goddard space flight center in greenbelt maryland where it is processed and in seconds passed to the mercury control center at Cape Canaveral Florida through this network we can talk to the astronauts and we can track the path of a spacecraft watching for this scope display as the spacecraft comes over the horizon seeing it on radar first at long range 700 miles then locating it within a half a degree at a distance of 500 miles each station teletypes the radar information to the computers at Goddard Space Flight Center where the spacecraft's the exact orbit is determined through the network we can collect some 100 items of information on the physical condition of the astronauts and the spacecraft we can monitor his pulse his respiration the G loading on man and spacecraft we can determine seconds after the spacecraft separates from the Atlas and turns heatshield forward whether its orbit is good or whether it should be brought down and we can determine and can bring it back to earth at any time if the situation warrants [Applause] Godspeed [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] started [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] real fine guy looking very dark outside pressure is holding it okay [Applause] coming up on two minutes either building the six go back to one and a quarter the tower fired that could not see the tower go I saw the smoke go by the window [Music] there the tower went right then I have the tower in st. way out I can see the tower go Edison power is going I am going good shape in the game 16 Cinco five secretes fired okay Roger zero-g and I feel fine capsule is turning around oh that view is tremendous Roger capsule turning around and I could see the booster during turnaround just a couple of hundred yards behind me it was beautiful [Applause] and now John Glenn is widget orbiting very nearly due east away from the United States though five miles farther the tips of every sort Roger friendship seven I am thinking across Africa then watching the sunset over the Indian Ocean in the night over Australia then the Sun rising behind him as he crosses in the Central Pacific [Applause] then across the United States toward Cape Canaveral once around 45 minutes of night and 45 minutes of day during the flight the automatic stabilization and control system was causing some difficulty didn't appear to be correcting the way it should was able to use the manual control and this didn't cause any trouble at all it was seemed very natural but after all of the trainer work we've done trainer simulations incidentally were very very close to the orbital control situation when we started having this problem at the end of the first orbit I was largely on manual control from there on for the end of the flight are they ever it feels like I'm going back toward away right here fire retro light is green [Applause] right here stop tell you there's no doubt about it when the retros fire yeah there'll be a car at the ground telemetry receivers had picked up an impulse that we possibly had a loose heat shield for that reason it was deemed advisable to keep the retro package in place during re-entry so that it would go ahead and burn off but by that time we would be in a high enough aerodynamic force field to keep the heat shield in place in case it was in fact loose [Applause] [Applause] I didn't really contest this decision from the control center because I knew that the experts we had on the ground had certainly thought this thing out much more thoroughly than I could in flight I knew that there would not be any change of this magnitude made unless it had certainly been considered from every possible angle by many many experts on the ground all the people have designed the system and all the other experts that were in the control center I Roger understand I will have to make a manual oh five D entry when it occurs and bring the scope in manually is that affirm [Applause] by this friendship seven are going to reentry attitude the spacecraft descends gradually toward the top of the atmosphere under the increasingly insistent pull of gravity [Applause] diet gay friendship seven friendship seven going to fly by wire I'm down to about 15% on manual the spacecraft begins to pile up a shockwave our speed 15,000 miles an hour the temperature of the heat shield is approaching 3000 degrees it's fiberglass surface is beginning to ablate to char to melt and vaporize streaming away to form a glowing electrically charged wait I can't by aircraft you're going out radio and telemetry contact falters stops blocked by the cloud of charged air [Applause] this is friendship 7 I think the pack just let go these straps on the retro pack broke loose and I felt a bump on the capsule and thought that the retro package had jettison as it was supposed to do apparently this was not true but I thought so at the time just friendship seven a real fireball outside this made a pretty spectacular re-entry from the capsule standpoint because as I went on into the higher heat pulse in this globe picked up outside the capsule to sort of a bright orange outside the window it became apparent that something was tearing up on the heat shield end of the capsule because there were large pieces from anywhere from pieces as big as the end of your finger to pieces probably seven or eight inches in diameter we're breaking off and falling off the edge of the capsule and coming back up past the window and we're flaming very brightly you could see the fire and a glow from them as they would come back up past the window this obviously was the retro package tearing up and and breaking off as we pre knew it would if it had been retained I thought at that time however that the retro package had already been jettisoned so there were some moments of doubt there is whether the heat shield had been damaged and whether it might be tearing up itself and this could have been a bad day all the way around if that had been the case but it was very spectacular looking out into this orange glow outside the window bright orange glow and seeing these big flaming chunks go go back along the flight path you're go for 5-0 okay we're through the peak tea now [Applause] friendship seven stroke is out Roger drove looks good I guess scope did not come out right here pumping the scope out in better write your entry checklist complete standing by for main intent coming down on dance snorkels are open [Applause] [Music] the chute is on green shoot us out in Reis condition at 10,800 feet and beautiful chute looks good on o2 emergency and the chute looks very good three of descent has gone to about four two feet per second the chute looks very good hello mercury recovery this is friendship seven Dearing see right here that's affirmative defend is normal indicating four zero feet per second all right here what is your estimate on recovery time over a free cup now at two zero minutes over Roger understand two zero minutes to pick up landing bag is on green friendship 7 ready for impact almost down there we go all right here my condition okay does the capsule look like it's okay over all right you're understand they want me to stay in the capsule until rescue right chef Sevan still out there that's Charlie or Roger and so it is our first man orbital flight with John Glenn receiving congratulations from the President of the United States but in ending it forms a new beginning a beginning not only to the line of Project Mercury orbital flights but to a series of ever-higher ever longer steps more training more teamwork more tests for after Atlas and after mercury the two-man Gemini for Earth orbits of a week or more and then Apollo a three-man spacecraft and with it flights first around the moon then to the moon landing and return then ultimately flights to other planets for the placing of Americans on the moon is not an end in itself but rather the focus for development of the national resources needed for adequate space science and exploration through the lunar landing program we give strong stimulus to science and technology to produce the competence needed by the nation to meet the great challenges of our age here on earth and beyond the earth in space [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music]