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Aviation History
1962
1962 - 0451.PDF
' FLIGHT International, 22 March 1962 Missiles and Spaceflight them in. The manual system had been a little mushy. It did not respond quite as crisply as I thought it should have, but I still had good control. It worked best when I switched to the fly-by-wire mode, which combines the manual control stick and the fuel nozzles which are operated by the automatic system. This meant that I could work the automatic system by hand and conserve its fuel. Though this routine took most of my attention and kept me rather busy for the next three hours, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The idea that I was flying this thing myself and proving on our first orbital test that a man's capabilities are needed in space was one of the high-spots of the day. The value of this outweighed the loss of some of the things I did not get to do. I did have some doubts about whether we would go for a third orbit. With the manual system a trifle sluggish and the automatic controls misbehaving, I was afraid the people down on the ground might prefer me to come home. I sincerely hoped not. There was nothing to worry about unless things got worse. We were still flying, and I figured that if it became necessary for me to bring the capsule back myself I might as well have another 90 minutes of practice. The people on the ground apparently felt the same way. I was very happy when Mercury Control at the Cape recommended that I go for the third orbit. I concurred 100 per cent. As I was reporting my status to the Cape at the end of the second orbit I could look down and see the entire State of Florida and clear back to the delta of the Mississippi River. This was the best view I had had of the US. There was a cloud deck to the north, but I could see up as far as North Carolina. To the south, I spotted islands east of Cuba. I looked out over the Atlantic on this pass and checked the recovery area where I would be landing the next time around. There were a few scattered clouds but no sign of a major weather system. The sea was probably placid. I did not see Africa the last time over. The third orbit took me farther south than I had gone before, and the area was dark and cloudy. In preparation for re-entry I started stowing my gear and running through all of the check-lists again. There was a little uncertainty when I got around to Hawaii about the exact timing of the retro-rockets that would slow me down and start me edging back through the atmosphere. This had to be precise because at my orbital speed of five miles a second an error of one second in the retro-firing would mean a dispersion of five miles in the impact area. I received a time-check from the Hawaii tracking station which seemed to be seven seconds off the timing that I had previously checked. I tried to confirm this, but then I lost communications with Hawaii. After a few moments' delay I was able to reach astronaut Wally Schirra, who was standing by at the tracking station in California. By the time I contacted him and explained the situation I had only 50 seconds left before the retro-sequence was due to start. Wally worked fast and confirmed my own timing. He also told me to retain the retro-package after the rockets had fired, and not let it jettison. This was not according to routine, and I asked Wally for the reason. He told me the station in Texas would explain. The capsule was now in the correct attitude for retro-firing. The automatic system appeared to be working properly. I checked my attitude against the horizon, the periscope and the instruments. We were all lined up. In addition to my clock timing Wally gave me the countdown for retro-sequence, and 30 seconds later the three rockets started to fire off the west coast of California. They fired on schedule, at five-second intervals. Each one of them gave me a very solid push. Since I was weightless and the rockets were firing backwards against the direction of the flight, I had the sensation of accelerating back toward Hawaii. Actually, the rockets were only slowing me down. Both Al Shepard and Gus Grissom had experienced the same sensation when they tested the retros on their flights, and I was prepared for it. The firing of the rockets caused some motion of the capsule but, since I was using both the automatic and the manual control systems together, the capsule maintained the proper position. I brought "I spent a short time aboard the 'Noa' debriefing myself into a tape recorder . . ." Friendship 7 to re-entry attitude and prepared to go into the atmosphere. As soon as I was in contact with the tracking station in Texas, I asked again why they recommended retaining the retro-package. Texas said Cape Canaveral would give me the word. Al Shepard came on to explain that Mercury Control had had an indication by telemetry earlier in the flight that my heat-shield might have come loose. If this was true, I could be in for some difficulty. The heat-shield, which is made up of a thick coating of resinous material on the blunt nose of the capsule, is designed to dissipate most of the heat and energy picked up during re-entry and get it out of the system by melting and boiling away very slowly. This was the only thing that stood between me and disaster as we came through the atmosphere. If the heat-shield was loose, the retro-package and its retaining straps would have to hold it in place. I assumed the people on the ground were concerned about just this from some of the questions they had been asking me. I was con cerned, too, of course. But it occurred to me that if the heat-shield was really loose I should have been able to hear or feel it shaking behind me. I had not. As we started to heat up on re-entry, I could feel something let go on the blunt end of the capsule behind me. There was a considerable thump. 1 saw one of the three metal straps that hold the retro-pack in place start flapping around loose in front of the window. This was not abnormal. Then I began to see a bright orange glow building up around the capsule. The loose strap burned off at this point and dropped away. Right away I could see flaming chunks go flying by the window. "Just before / was hoisted up into the 'copter, / sow my fourth sunset of the day..."
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