Photographing America s First Astronauts

329 pages

English

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Purdue University Press - John Bisney , J. L. Pickering

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329 pages

English

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Featuring more than 600 photos, Photographing America's First Astronauts: Project Mercury Through the Lens of Bill Taub is the most complete photographic account of Project Mercury ever published. Previous Project Mercury books largely have relied on the relatively limited number of photos released by NASA. This book, however, showcases hundreds of never-before-seen images of America’s first manned space program by NASA’s first staff photographer, Bill Taub. Taub went everywhere with the Mercury astronauts, capturing their daily activities from 1959 to 1963. As a result, his photos provide a unique and intimate behind-the-scenes look at the people and operations of Project Mercury in real time.

Drawing on Taub’s recently discovered archive of thousands of black-and-white and color prints, slides, and transparencies, this is the first book to comprehensively visually document Project Mercury. No previous book has devoted as many images to each of the Mercury Seven astronauts and their pioneering spaceflights. Other chapters cover astronaut selection and training, NASA management, and facilities at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Each image is accompanied by a detailed caption. The foreword is by legendary NASA Flight Director Eugene Kranz.

Foreword by Eugene Kranz

Introduction

About the Photography

Acknowledgments

1. Steps to Space

2. The People of Mercury

3. Alan Shepard/Mercury-Redstone 3

4. Gus Grissom/Mercury-Redstone 4

5. John Glenn/Mercury-Atlas 6

6. Deke Slayton/Destiny Delayed

7. Scott Carpenter/Mercury-Atlas 7

8. Wally Schirra/Mercury-Atlas 8

9. Gordon Cooper/Mercury-Atlas 9

10. Beyond Mercury

Abbreviations

Bibliography

About Bill Taub

About the Authors

Sujets

Informations

Publié par	Purdue University Press
Date de parution	01 mai 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781612498577
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	154 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,2250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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PHOTOGRAPHING AMERICA'S FIRST ASTRONAUTS

Purdue Studies in Aeronautics and Astronautics

SERIES EDITOR

James R. Hansen, Emeritus, Auburn University

Purdue Studies in Aeronautics and Astronautics builds on Purdue’s leadership in aeronautic and astronautic engineer-ing, as well as the historic accomplishments of many of its luminary alumni. Including scholarly works and memoirs, books in the series will explore cutting-edge topics in aeronautics and astronautics enterprises, tell unique stories from the history of ﬂight and space travel, and contemplate the future of human space exploration and colonization.

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PHOTOGRAPHING AMERICA'S FIRST ASTRONAUTS

Project Mercury Through the Lens of Bill Taub

J. L. Pickering and John Bisney Foreword by Eugene Kranz

Purdue University Press West Lafayette, Indiana

Copyrg 2023 by J. L. Pckerng and Jon Bsney. A rgs reserved.

Prned n e Uned Saes o Amerca.

Caaogng-n-Pubcaon Daa s avaabe rom e Lbrary o Congress.

978-1-61249-856-0 (ardback) 978-1-61249-857-7 (epd )

Cover mage: Porra o Gordon Cooper by B Taub, NASA poograper

CONTENTS

Foreword by Eugene Kranz

Introduction

About the Photography

Acknowledgments

Steps to Space

The People of Mercury

Alan Shepard/Mercury-Redstone 3

Gus Grissom/Mercury-Redstone 4

John Glenn/Mercury-Atlas 6

Deke Slayton/Destiny Delayed

Scott Carpenter/Mercury-Atlas 7

vii

109

145

191

207

WallySchirra/Mercury-Atlas8

Gordon Cooper/Mercury-Atlas 9

10. Beyond Mercury

Abbreviations

Bibliography

About Bill Taub

About the Authors

241

261

281

305

307

309

311

Foreword

Bill Taub’s photography provides a powerful reminder ofchallenge to NASA and the world: “I believe that this America’s ﬁrst manned space program. Each of the pho- nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before tos brings me (and will bring others) back to the begin-the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and ning of Project Mercury. Writing this foreword, I foundreturning him safely to Earth.” myself reliving the pioneering years when NASA beganWith these words, “our time” became one of challenge, to fulﬁll President John F. Kennedy’s mandate to wresttriumph, and tragedy, and we needed heroes. Bernard away Russia’s leadership in space. Taub’s photos remindMalamud, author of the baseball novelThe Natural, said, me of “our time,” the convergence of the destinies of a “Without heroes, we are all plain people and don't know small group of aviators, engineers, and the seven testhow far we can go.” At the time, America’s heroes were pilots selected to travel beyond the earth’s atmosphereTed Williams, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, and Hank as astronauts.Aaron, who were pursuing Babe Ruth’s 500 home run President Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address providedrecord. This quickly changed as America’s sports heroes a message of freedom, responsibility, and challenge: “Thewere overshadowed by silver-suited astronauts with the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans—“right stuff.” born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by aTheir exploits appeared in newspapers and maga-hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—andzines and on black-and-white TVs. The astronauts were unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those space test pilots, launched atop modiﬁed Redstone and human rights to which this nation has always been com- Atlas rockets ﬁrst developed for the military. Weightless, mitted, and to which we are committed today at homethey ﬂew in a vacuum around the Earth at 5 miles per and around the world.” The president concluded with,second in an environment of radiation and extreme tem-“My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can doperatures in a spacecraft with a working space compara-for you, ask what you can do for your country.” ble to the driver’s seat of a Volkswagen Beetle, but were These words were included to establish the context for so cool that they drove Chevrolet Corvettes provided by America’s early work in space. The Soviet Union anda lease from General Motors for one dollar a year. the United States, the two world superpowers engagedEven the wordspacehad a magic, extraordinary in a Cold War on Earth, were also competing for mas-attraction. It had a resonance, a newness, a job that tery of space. The Soviets had captured the high groundoffered challenges. When I decided to enter work in with the ﬁrst artiﬁcial satellite,Sputnik, in October 1957,space, I could only imagine that, whatever happened, and by putting the ﬁrst man into space, Yuri Gagarin,I would be there when it all began. Before coming to in April 1961. NASA, I had served as a ﬁghter pilot during the Korean Three weeks after Alan Shepard became America’sWar; and as a ﬂight test engineer for the B-52, I devel-ﬁrst astronaut, President Kennedy issued an audaciousoped the systems that would protect that aircraft when

vii

entering Soviet airspace. Completing the test program in 1960, I joined NASA as a member of the original Space Task Group in Langley, Virginia. Flight test was the common fabric of the STG, led by Walt Williams, Robert Gilruth, Chris Kraft, and Sigurd Sjoberg, who had been project engineer for the ﬁrst aircraft to reach Mach 2. The ﬁrst day I walked into the Mercury Control Center (MCC) at Cape Canaveral, I knew space operations would be the focus of my career. The large world map with the tracking stations marked and the small model showing the spacecraft’s location demonstrated the glo-bal scope of circling the Earth every ninety minutes. The room, with brand-new consoles, conveyed the vision of the effort to come. Mercury provided the essential training ground, our boot camp. We had routinely exceeded the speed of sound in atmospheric ﬂight, but the physics changes for objects to remain in orbit. Computers and communica-tions were in their infancy, and digital systems were yet to come. We relied on undersea cables and voice relayed by radio. Teletypes provided communications with track-ing stations. “High-speed” tracking data, when available by cable, was at a sluggish 2 kilobits per second. I did not know that the chattering teletype machines would become a critical asset for my communications to the teams at land-based sites spanning the globe and ships in the Atlantic, Indian, and Paciﬁc oceans. During launches, for example, I dictated mission events to a tele-type operator, who would transmit messages to another operator in Bermuda, who would then voice my message to the Bermuda ﬂight controller. The Mercury control team and those at the tracking sta-tions were all rookies borrowed for the mission from the engineering staff. There were no manuals, so we had to write them. In ﬂight test, there was always an option in case of trouble (ﬁnd a landing site or bail out), but this option did not exist in space; and without an onboard

viii | Foreword

computer, the astronauts depended on us to even con-ﬁrm they were in orbit. Subsequent stations would advise they were GO for more orbits. We developed rules to provide our best judgment for mission termination in case of emergency. Search and rescue capabilities were supported by Navy ships in the contingency landing areas. The astronauts served as spacecraft communicators, and their training was in a rudimentary simulator in the same building. The simulation and pad test debrieﬁngs, mission rules, and ﬂight planning were conducted in the MCC, or at the Cocoa Beach barbecue restaurant Fat Boy’s, or after hours at the Holiday Inn. Taub’s photos establish the close, intimate, and infor-mal relationship among the astronauts, their family mem-bers, and support personnel, providing a perspective of the joyful informality that existed within the Mercury team. We put six astronauts in space, and with more than our share of luck, returned all safely. These photos provide a window to the early space generation and the individu-als who provided the spark to ignite American manned spaceﬂight. The book is a visual journey to what was once, but will never be again. Project Mercury was the foundation for all future work in space. The unmanned and manned missions provided the awareness that “good enough” was inadequate in the arena of manned spaceﬂight. Achievement through Excel-lence became the standard, as highly skilled engineers with hands-on experience as an integrated team under the direction of a ﬂight director were trained to take the actions necessary for crew safety and mission success. It was critical to achieving President Kennedy’s goal and the rest of the Apollo program. The history of spaceﬂight is replete with the stories of those who were willing to take the risk and ﬁnd out how far they could go. I was one of those fortunate to walk among the early space pioneers.

Eugene F. Kranz Houston, Texas

Introduction

Project Mercury holds a special place in the pantheonabort will result in the loss of life of the crew. The program of space exploration. Not only did it successfully sendproved an astronaut could be launched into Earth orbit, the ﬁrst four Americans into orbit to keep pace with thefunction there as a combination pilot–observer–experi-Soviet Union during a worrisome 1960s Space Racementer for at least thirty-four hours, survive the intense between nuclear superpowers, it was also a remarkable heat of atmospheric reentry, and be safely recovered. engineering achievement on its own.Just six weeks after America’s ﬁrst astronaut, Alan Locked in an uneasy Cold War with the USSR, theShepard, made his ﬁfteen-minute suborbital hop in May American public had not been focused on space until1961, President John F. Kennedy set a manned moon land-the launch of the Soviets’Sputnikin October 1957. Aing as a national goal. Mercury suddenly represented US Army team matched the feat four months later, but in the country’s—and in some minds, the free world’s—cru-April 1961, the USSR scored another alarming ﬁrst with cial starting point. the one-orbit ﬂight of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. The program was conducted over more than four and President Dwight D. Eisenhower had decided thata half years and involved two million people from gov-manned ﬂights (and most US space efforts) should be con-ernment and aerospace contractors at a cost of $400.6 ducted by a new civilian government agency, the Nationalmillion. It comprised twenty-ﬁve ﬂights using ﬁfteen space-Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), whichcraft, but our focus in this book is on the six missions that began operations on October 1, 1958. Just a week later, were manned. We do so thanks to the images taken by the US program to send men into space was approved, NASA’s ﬁrst photographer, Bill Taub, few of which have and two months later, it was named Project Mercury. ever been published, as J. L. details. Started from scratch in many areas and operating in aResearching and writing the text was, as always, an pre-digital world using slide rules, typewriters, and tele-education in some of the ﬁne points of hardware and phone calls, Mercury was largely based on analog tech- procedures. We also, as in our previous books, identify nology, so, in retrospect, its rapid planning, testing, and as many people as possible. Two editorial notes: we use successful execution were stunning. Although some stud- Eastern Standard Time year-round because Florida had ies had begun several years earlier, virtually nothing wasnot yet adopted Daylight Saving Time. We use the term known about human spaceﬂight, and the undertaking“manned” in no pejorative sense, but rather as the adjec-would require, among other things, a new spacecraft, a tive was used historically (and accurately for US ﬂights new control center, new pressure suits, new ocean recov-until Sally Ride’s space shuttle mission twenty years later). ery procedures, and a new worldwide tracking network.My earliest memories of Project Mercury are watch-Mercury’s approach to safety and reliability was key. Iting launches on TV in elementary school sitting on the was based on two principles: ﬁrst, no single failure shallgym ﬂoor with classmates, and how much my mother cause an abort; and second, no single failure during an admired John Glenn. I was fortunate to eventually meet