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These tests will be reviewed with particular emphasis on schedule, the
individual mission objectives, and the results from each mission. Then,
the organization with which management directed the activities of
Project Mercury will be explained, particularly with respect to those
internal interfaces between major segments of NASA and those external
interfaces with contractors and other governmental departments.
The resources expended during the project will be explained with discussions
on manpower and cost. In addition, the major results of the project will be
discussed as will those areas which presented severe obstacles to technical
progress.
Objectives and Guidelines
The objectives of the Mercury Project, as stated at the time of project go-ahead, were as follows:
- Place a manned spacecraft in orbital flight around the earth.
-
Investigate man's performance capabilities and his ability to function in the
environment of space.
-
Recover the man and the spacecraft safely.
After the objectives were established for the project, a number of
guidelines were established to insure that the most expedient and
safest approach for attainment of the objectives was followed. The
basic guidelines that were established are as follows:
- Existing technology and off-the-shelf equipment should be used
wherever practical.
- The simplest and most reliable approach to system design would be
followed.
- An existing launch vehicle would be employed to place the
spacecraft into orbit.
- A progressive and logical test program would be conducted.
More detailed requirements for the spacecraft were established as
follows:
- The spacecraft must be fitted with a reliable launch-escape
system to separate the spacecraft and its crew from the launch vehicle in case of
impending failure.
-
The pilot must be given the capability of manually controlling spacecraft attitude.
-
The spacecraft must carry a retrorocket system capable of reliably
providing the necessary impulse to bring the spacecraft out of orbit.
-
A zero-lift body utilizing drag braking would be used for reentry.
-
The spacecraft design must satisfy the requirements for a water landing.
It is obvious by a casual look at the spacecraft that
requirements (1), (3), and (4) were followed as evidenced by the escape
tower, the retrorocket system on the blunt end of the spacecraft,
and the simple blunt-body shape without wings. Items (2) and (5) have
been made apparent by the manner in which the astronaut has manually
controlled the attitude of the spacecraft during orbital maneuvers,
retrofire, and reentry, and by the recovery of the spacecraft and
astronauts after each flight by recovery forces which included aircraft
carriers and destroyers. Basically, the equipment used in the
spacecraft was derived from off-the-shelf equipment or through the
direct application of existing technology, although some notable
exceptions were made in order to improve reliability and flight safety.
These exceptions include:
- An automatic blood-pressure measuring system for use in
flight.
- Instruments for sensing the partial pressures of oxygen and carbon
dioxide in the oxygen atmosphere of the cabin and suit, respectively.
Some
may argue with the detailed way in which the second basic guideline of
simplicity was carried out; however, this guideline was carried out to
the extent possible within the volume, weight, and redundancy
requirements imposed upon the overall system. The effect of the weight
and volume constraints, of course, resulted in smaller and lighter
equipment that could not always be packaged in an optimum way for
simplicity.
Redundancy probably increased the complexity of the systems more than
any other requirement. Because the spacecraft had to be qualified by
space flight first without a man onboard and then because the reactions
of man and his capabilities in the space environment were unknown,
provisions for a completely automatic operation for the critical
spacecraft functions were provided. To insure reliable operation, these
automatic systems were backed up by redundant automatic systems.
The third
guideline was satisfied by an adaptation of an existing missile, the
Atlas. The modifications to this launch vehicle for use in the Mercury
Project included the addition of a means to sense automatically
impending catastrophic failure of the launch vehicle and provisions to
accommodate a new structure that would form the transition between the
upper section of the launch vehicle and the spacecraft. Also, the
pilot-safety program was initiated to insure the selection of quality
components.
(Excerpt 2)
We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained,
and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of
all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has
no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only
if the United States occupies a position of preeminence can we help decide
whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new, terrifying theater
of war.
John F. Kennedy
Rice University Stadium
Houston, Texas
September 12, 1962
CHAPTER TWO, "Exploring the Human Factor" (1948-1958)
The development of the large liquid-fueled rocket made the dazzling
prospect of manned flight beyond Earth's atmosphere and into the vacuum
of space increasingly feasible from the standpoint of propulsion. By
1950, however, only instrumented sounding rockets, fired to ever higher
altitudes in both the United States and the Soviet Union, had reached
into space before falling earthward. Although a number of these
experimental shots carried living organisms (everything from fungus
spores to monkeys in the United States, mainly dogs in the U.S.S.R.)
the data acquired from telemetry and from occasional recovery of rocket
nose cones had not shown conclusively how long organisms could live in
space, or indeed whether man could survive at all outside the
protective confines of his atmosphere. Scientists still were hesitant
to predict how a human being would behave under conditions to be
encountered in space flight. Thus while space flight became
technologically practicable, physiologically and psychologically it
remained an enigma. In the early 1950s an acceleration of efforts in
upper-atmospheric and space medical research accompanied the quickened
pace of rocket development in this country and in the Soviet Union.
During the next few years medical specialists, profiting from
substantial progress in telemetering clinical data, learned a great
deal about what a man could expect when he went into the forbidding
arena of space. Much of the confidence with which the engineers of
Project Mercury in 1958 approached the job of putting a man into orbit
and recovering him stemmed from the findings of hundreds of
studies made in previous years on the human factors in space flight.
Since the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was interested
almost exclusively in the technology of flight, research in the medical
problems of space flight, like aviation medicine in previous decades,
was the province primarily of the military services and of some
civilian research organizations receiving funds from the military. Of
the three services, the United States Air Force, rich in background in
aeromedical research and assuming that space medicine was but
an extension of aviation medicine, undertook most of the early
inquiry into the psycho-physiological problems of extra-atmospheric
flight.
Astronaut Selection
Now that men had been chosen to serve as the focal points for all this
effort, new spirits animated the Space Task Group (STG). Indeed, the
Nation as a whole began to participate vicariously in Project Mercury
when, on April 9, 1959, at a press conference in Washington, Glennan
(NASA ADMINISTRATOR) introduced to the public the seven men chosen to
be this Nation's nominees for the first human voyagers into space. They
were to be called "astronauts," as the pioneers of ballooning had been
called "Argonauts," for they were to sail into a new, uncharted ocean.
These personable pilots were introduced in civilian dress; many people
in their audience forgot that they were volunteer test subjects and
military officers. Their public comments did not class them with any
elite intelligence. Rather they were a contingent of mature Americans,
average in build and visage, family men all, college-educated as
engineers, possessing excellent health, and professionally committed to
flying advanced aircraft.
Compared with the average, white,
middle-class American male, they enjoyed better health, physically and
psychologically, and they had far more experience among and above the
clouds. Slightly short of average in stature, they were above average
in seriousness of purpose. Otherwise these seven seemed almost random
samples of average American manhood. Yet the names of Carpenter,
Cooper, Glenn, Grissom, Schirra, Shepard, and Slayton were perhaps to
become as familiar in American history as those of any actor, soldier,
or athlete. Despite the wishes of NASA Headquarters, and particularly
of Dryden, Silverstein, and Gilruth, the fame of the astronauts quickly
grew beyond all proportion to their current activities and their
preflight mission assignments. Perhaps it was inevitable that the
"crew-pool" members of STG were destined for premature adulation, what
with the enormous public curiosity about them, the risk they would take
in space flight, and their exotic training activities. But the power of
commercial competition for publicity and the pressure for political
prestige in the space race also whetted an insatiable public appetite
for this new kind of celebrity.
Walter T. Bonney, long a public information officer for NACA and now
Glennan's adviser on these matters, foresaw the public and press
attention, asked for an enlarged staff, and laid the guidelines for
public affairs policy in close accord with that of other Government
agencies. The astronauts were first and foremost test pilots, men
accustomed to flying along in the newest, most advanced, and most
powerful vehicles this civilization had produced. They were talented
specialists who loved to fly high-performance aircraft and who had
survived the natural selection process in their profession. The demand
for excellence in piloting skills, in physical health, and
psychological adaptability becomes ever more stringent as one ascends
the ladder toward the elite among military aviators, those senior test
pilots with upwards of 1500 hours' total flying time.
Eisenhower's decision that the military services could provide the
pilots greatly simplified the astronaut selection procedure. From a
total of 508 service records screened in January 1959 by Stanley C.
White, Robert B. Voas, and William S. Augerson at the military
personnel bureaus in Washington, 110 men were found to meet the minimum
standards specified earlier. This list of names included five Marines,
47 Navy men, and 58 Air Force pilots. Several Army pilots' records had
been screened earlier, but none was a graduate of a test pilot school.
The selection process began while the possibility of manned Redstone
flights in late 1959 still existed on paper. The evaluation committee
at Headquarters, headed by the Assistant Director of STG, Charles J.
Donlan, decided to divide the list of 110 arbitrarily into three groups
and to issue invitations for the first group of 35 to come to
Washington at the beginning of February for briefings and interviews.
Donlan was pleased to learn from his staff, White, Voas, and Augerson,
that 24 of the first group interviewed were happy with the prospects of
participating in the Mercury program. Every one of the first 10 men
interrogated on February 2 agreed to continue through the elimination
process. The next week another group of possible pilot-candidates
arrived in Washington. The high rate of volunteering made it
unnecessary to extend the invitations to the third group. Justifying
this action, George Low reported:
During the briefings and interviews it became apparent that the final
number of pilots should be smaller than the twelve originally planned
for. The high rate of interest in the project indicates that few, if
any, of the men will drop out during the training program. It would,
therefore, not be fair to the men to carry along some who would not be
able to participate in the flight program. Consequently, a
recommendation has been made to name only six finalists.
Sixty-nine men had reported to Washington in two groups by the middle
of February. Of these, six were found to have grown too tall. Fifty-six
pilots took the initial battery of written tests, technical interviews,
psychiatric interviews, and medical history reviews. Those who declined
or were eliminated reduced the total at the beginning of March to 36
men. They were invited to undergo the extraordinary physical
examinations planned for them at the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque.
Thirty-two accepted and became candidates, knowing also that they were
scheduled to pass through extreme mental and physical environmental
tests at the Wright Air Development Center, in Dayton, Ohio, after
being certified as physically qualified by the Lovelace Clinic. The 32
candidates were assured that the data derived from these special
examinations in New Mexico and Ohio would not jeopardize their military
careers, since none of the findings was to go into their service
records.
Although the psycho physiological
criteria for the selection of the best possible pilots for manned space
flight had been under discussion for several years, the actual
arrangement of the selection procedures for Mercury was directed by a
NASA selection committee consisting of a senior management engineer,
Donlan; a test pilot engineer, North; two flight surgeons, White and
Augerson; two psychologists, Allen O. Gamble and Voas; and two
psychiatrists, George E. Ruff and Edwin Z. Levy. These seven men had
done the screening of records and the interviews and testing in
Washington, constituting phases one and two of the selection program,
before remanding their pool of 32 candidates to the medical examiners
at the Lovelace Foundation.
Individually each candidate
arrived at Albuquerque to undergo approximately a week of medical
evaluations under each of five different schedules. In this third phase
of the program, over 30 different laboratory tests collected chemical,
encephalographic, and cardiographic data. X-ray examinations thoroughly
mapped each man's body. The ophthalmology section and the
otolaryngology sections likewise learned almost everything about each
candidate's eyes, and his ears, nose, and throat. Special physiological
examinations included bicycle ergometer tests, a total-body radiation
count, total-body water determination, and the specific gravity of the
whole body. Heart specialists made complete cartiological examinations,
and other clinicians worked out more complete medical histories on
these men than probably had ever before been attempted on human beings.
Nevertheless the selectees were so healthy that only one of the 32 was
found to have a medical problem potentially serious enough to eliminate
him from the subsequent tests at the Wright Aeromedical Laboratory.
Phase four of the selection program was an amazingly elaborate set of
environmental studies, physical endurance tests, anthropometric
measurements, and psychiatric studies conducted at the Aeromedical
Laboratory of the Wright Air Development Center. During March each of
the 31 subjects spent another week experiencing a wide range of
stressful conditions. Voas explained phases three and four: "While the
purpose of the medical examinations at Lovelace Clinic had been to
determine the general health status of the candidates, the purpose of
the testing program at Wright Field was to determine the physical and
psychological capability of the individual to respond effectively and
appropriately to the various types of stresses associated with space
missions." In addition to pressure suit tests, acceleration tests,
vibration tests, heat tests, and loud noise tests, each candidate had
to prove his physical endurance on treadmills, tilt tables, with his
feet in ice water, and by blowing up balloons until exhausted.
Continuous psychiatric interviews, the necessity of living with two
psychologists throughout the week, and extensive self-examination
through a battery of 13 psychological tests for personality and
motivation, and another dozen different tests on intellectual functions
and special aptitudes--these were all part of the week of truth at
Dayton. Two of the more interesting personality and motivation studies
seemed like parlor games at first, until it became evident how profound
an exercise in Socratic introspection was implied by conscientious
answers to the test questions "Who am I?" and "Whom would you assign to
the mission if you could not go yourself?" In the first case, by
requiring the subject to write down 20 definitional identifications of
himself, ranked in order of significance, and interpreted projectively,
the psychologists elicited information on identity and perception of
social roles. In the peer ratings, each candidate was asked which of
the other members of the group of five accompanying him through this
phase of the program he liked best, which one he would like to
accompany him on a two-man mission, and whom he would substitute for
himself. Candidates who had proceeded this far in the selection process
all agreed with one who complained, "Nothing is sacred any more."
Back at STG headquarters at Langley, late in March 1959, phase five
began. The final evaluation of data was made by correlating clinical
and statistical information from New Mexico and Ohio. Eighteen of the
31 candidates came recommended without medical reservations for final
consideration by Donlan and North. According to Donlan, although the
physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, and physiologists had done
their best to establish gradations, the attrition rate was too low. So
the final criteria for selecting the candidates reverted to the
technical qualifications of the men and the technical requirements of
the program, as judged by Donlan, North, White, and finally Gilruth.
"We looked for real men and valuable experience," said Donlan. The
selection tests, as it turned out, were largely tests of tests,
"conducted as much for the research value in trying to formulate the
characteristics of astronauts as for determining any deficiencies of
the group being examined." The verbal responses at the interviews,
before and after the psychophysiological testing, therefore, seem to
have been as important final determinants as the candidates' test
scores.
Sitting in judgment
over 18 finalists, Donlan, White, and North pared down the final pool
of selectees, choosing each to complement the rest of the group. The
going was so difficult that they could not reach the magic number six,
so Gilruth decided to recommend seven. Donlan then telephoned each of
the seven individually to ask whether he was still willing to accept a
position as a Mercury astronaut. Each one gladly volunteered again. The
24 who were passed over were notified and asked to reapply for
reconsideration in some future program. Gilruth's endorsement of the
final list was passed upward to Silverstein and Glennan for final
review, and by mid-April the faces of America's original seven spacemen
were shown to the world.
As the astronauts lost their private lives, Project Mercury found its
first great public notice. An eighth military officer and pilot came
aboard STG about the same time to manage the public information and
press relations that were already threatening to intrude on the time
and talent of STG. The eighth personality was an experienced Air Force
pilot who had flown extensively in World War II, on the Berlin Airlift,
and in Korea, and who also had proven himself as a public information
officer after 1954, when he was charged with ameliorating public fears
and complaints over jet noises, sonic booms, and the ballistic missile
programs. Lieutenant Colonel John A. Powers, USAF, came on board the
STG staff in early April 1959. Thereafter the mellifluous voice and
impish grin of "Shorty" Powers made his reputation as the primary
buffer for STG in its relations with the press and the public.
Throughout the Mercury program, he stood before the news media and the
people of the world as the one living symbol of all the anonymous human
effort behind the astronaut of the moment.
Powers propagated some oversimplified images in many instances, as it
was his job to do, but no one man then or now could completely
understand or communicate the complexity of the myriad research,
development, and operations activities that lay behind a launch. Then,
too, the caliber of the questions determined the quality of his
answers, and all too often the questions asked were simple. What was an
astronaut really like? What did he eat for breakfast? Which ones had
been Boy Scouts? How did their wives take their commitment? Such
questions provoked many to abandon asking how these seven came to be
chosen and for what purpose they were entering training. From the
United States Marine Corps, Lieutenant Colonel John Herschel Glenn,
Jr., received orders to report to the Space Task Group at Langley
Field, on the first of May. He then found himself the senior astropilot
in age and date of rank. From the Navy, Walter Marty Schirra, Jr., and
Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr., both lieutenant commanders, and Lieutenant
Malcolm Scott Carpenter reported aboard STG. And the Air Force assigned
three captains, Donald Kent Slayton, Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr., and
Virgil I. Grissom, to duty with NASA as test pilots, alias Mercury
astronauts. On May 28, 1959, the astronauts were brought before the
House Committee on Science and Astronautics in executive session. They
were asked to reassure the Congressmen that they were content with the
orderliness, safety, and seriousness of Project Mercury. This they did
vigorously, together and separately, before Schirra mentioned the
"seven-sided coin" of competition over which one should get the first
flight.
The first seven American astronauts were an admirable group of
individuals chosen to sit at the apex of a pyramid of human effort. In
training to transcend gravity they became a team of personalities as
well as a crew of pilots. They were lionized by laymen and adored by
youth as heroes before their courage was truly tested. In volunteering
to entrust their lives to Mercury's spirit and Atlas' strength to blaze
a trail for man into the empyrean, they chose to lead by following the
opportunity that chance, circumstance, technology, and history had
prepared for them. Influential 20th-century philosophers as diverse as
Bertrand Russell, Teilhard de Chardin, and Walter Kaufmann tell us that
man's profoundest aspiration is to know himself and his universe and
that life's deepest passion is a desire to become godlike. All men must
balance their hubris with their humility, but, as one of those aspiring
astronauts said, "How could anyone turn down a chance to be a part of
something like this?" Shortly after the astronauts were introduced to
the public, a literate layman asked directions of Mercury for mankind
in general: Which way will heaven be then? Up? Down? Across? Or far
within?
Summary
The United States' first manned space flight project was successfully
accomplished in a 4 2/3 year period of dynamic activity which saw more
than 2,000,000 people from many major government agencies and much of
the aerospace industry combine their skills, initiative, and experience
into a national effort. In this period, six manned space flights were
accomplished as part of a 25-flight program. These manned space flights
were accomplished with complete pilot safety and without change to the
basic Mercury concepts. It was shown that man can function ably as a
pilot-engineer-experimenter without undesirable reactions or
deteriorations of normal body functions for periods up to 34 hours of
weightless flight. Directing this large and fast moving project
required the development of a management structure and operating mode
that satisfied the requirement to mold the many different entities into
a workable structure. The management methods and techniques so
developed are discussed. Other facets of the Mercury experience such as
techniques and philosophies developed to insure well-trained flight and
ground crews and correctly prepared space vehicles are discussed. Also,
those technical areas of general application to aerospace activities
that presented obstacles to the accomplishment of the project are
briefly discussed. Emphasis is placed on the need for improved detail
design guidelines and philosophy, complete and appropriate hardware
qualification programs, more rigorous standards, accurate and detailed
test procedures, and more responsive configuration control techniques.
1.
These
are excerpts from a NASA book entitled, NASA SP-45, "Mercury Project
Summary, Including Results of the Fourth Manned Orbital Flight, May 15
and 16, 1963. The publication date is October 1963.
2.
Also, the Previous are excerpts from "This New Ocean, A History of
Project Mercury," NASA SP-4201, by Loyd S. Swenson, Jr., James M.
Grimwood, and Charles C. Alexander. This book was printed in 1966, and
it was for sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office. Library of
Congress Catalog Card Number is 66-62424.)
Project Review
By Walter C. Williams, Deputy Director for Mission Requirements
and Flight Operations, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center; Kenneth S.
Kleinknecht, Manager, Mercury Project, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center;
William M. Bland, Jr., Deputy Manager, Mercury Project, NASA Manned
Spacecraft Center; and James E. Bost, Chief, Engineering Operations
Office, Mercury Project Office, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center.
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