Some Things You May Not Know About The History Made 50 Years Ago

Special To ANN By Wes Oleszewski

On May 5th, 1961 the United States launched its first astronaut. Flying aboard his Mercury capsule, Christened "Freedom 7," Alan Shepard made a sub-orbital hop down the Atlantic Missile Range. His flight lasted just 15 minutes and 28 seconds and brought the free world to a standing ovation. Since then a number of myths and legends have grown around the event. From a Hollywood movie that played VERY loosely with the facts, to poorly produced documentaries, to sanitized accounts published by NASA and "Life Magazine," to personal accounts drafted from memories with plenty of wear on them- it is often hard to drum out something close to the truth. In light of the recent passing of the 50th anniversary of Freedom 7, I figured it would be fun to denote a few of the odds and ends of the mission here.

Shepard Aboard Freedom 7

One commonly held myth is that Shepard reported aspects of his condition and that of his capsule as being "A-OK." In fact, Shepard never used the term "A-OK" during the mission. The term "A-OK" was actually coined by NASA Public Affairs Officer (PAO) John "Shorty" Powers who announced the flight.

Many people think that during Shepard's flight, the public heard his voice calling out readings and making observations. In fact not a single word that Shepard spoke during the mission was allowed to be heard live by the public. Only those who were working the mission and had a "need-to-know" were allowed to hear the live air-to-ground transmissions. This may seem amazing today where nearly every word of a spaceflight is broadcast live. Although NASA was far less risk averse in the Mercury days, they were far more image aware. All of the air-to-ground that the Mercury astronauts broadcast was filtered through PAO Shorty Powers who then repeated to the public a "NASA-correct" version of what was being said. Shortly after the flight, films of the mission had the edited voice track of the astronaut dubbed in and from there on that became the "official version" of the mission. As the Gemini program came into being, the voices of the crew on orbit were allowed to be broadcast, but were done so on a NASA time delay. Reentry and launch air-to-ground was not allowed to be heard live by the public until Apollo 10 (believe it or not).

Alan Shepard Suiting Up

Exactly who would be the astronaut to fly aboard the first Mercury spacecraft was kept a close secret within NASA. All that was released to the public were the names of the top three choices; Glenn, Grissom and Shepard. It was not until after the scrub of Shepard's original launch date of May, 2nd that NASA decided to actually make public his identity as the first United States astronaut. There were very elevated concerns that if the Soviets found out which of the Mercury 7 astronauts was slated to make the first flight, they may assign agents to do harm to that individual. Historians digging in the KGB archives have found no such inclination by the Soviets, however.

In that near-fictional movie "The Right Stuff" Sheppard is shown stepping from the transfer van at the launch pad, stopping and looking up at the booster and giving a big "Thumbs Up." He did stop and look the booster over, but he never did the thumbs-up. Additionally, the movie shows him stepping from the recovery helicopter onto the carrier deck and having his first footprints on the deck outlined in yellow paint. That never happened either. Of course those are just two of about a bazillion errors in that movie.

Freedom 7 Periscope

Shepard's Freedom 7 was the only manned Mercury spacecraft that did not have a "pilot's" window. Instead the spacecraft had two portholes located approximately where the astronaut's elbows would be. It was nearly impossible for a pressure-suited astronaut with a helmet on to see anything through the portholes. Like all manned Mercury spacecraft, however, Shepard's had a periscope. The periscope was a handy tool and the Mercury crews liked it. As Shepard waited through a series of pre-launch holds he had nothing to do other than look out through the periscope. At sunrise, as the vehicle sat on the pad, the sun shied directly into the periscope and Shepard put in a gray filter to cut down the glare. Unfortunately, prior to launch he remembered to retract the periscope, but forgot to remove the dark gray filter. During his flight, there was a specified point where he was supposed to look through the periscope and make a report. Dutifully, he deployed the periscope and discovered that the dark filter heavily obscured what he could see. When he reached to remove the filter he found that his gloved hand was bumping against the "Abort" handle. So he wisely decided to just leave the filter in. "I really couldn't see a damned thing through it." he confided to Grissom after the flight, "So I just gave the same weather report that I'd been given in the preflight briefing and called out some known landmarks." In fact, if you read the actual weather briefing given to Shepard before the launch and compare it to what he broadcast back to the ground it is almost word-for-word the same… with a few well known landmarks thrown in.

The service gantry used on Shepard's Mercury Redstone was a former oil derrick that was disassembled and trucked to Cape Canaveral in the early 1950s. It was set up at the newly established Launch Complex 3 & 4 to service the Army's first Redstone tests. The first of those launches took place on August 20, 1953 and the gantry was moved on common railroad rails in order to clear the rocket. Sometime between March of 1955 and April 1955 the tower was lowered and the gantry was moved by rails to the Army's new Vertical Launch Facility. It was there that the gantry serviced Freedom 7's launch vehicle.

"Surfside 5"

Shepard's launch gantry also had a special enclosure constructed on it that would surround the Mercury spacecraft and keep out the rain, sun plus most of the sand and dust. The enclosure was air conditioned by a 10 ton machine and today would be called a "White Room." In 1961, however, there was a TV show that was set in Miami and was called "Surfside 6" so the folks at the pad decided to call their white room "Surfside 5."

Once the service gantry was rolled away, a yellow truck with a "cherry picker" basket was parked nearby. The basket was raised up alongside the spacecraft and parked near the hatch. This was supposed to serve as "quick escape" device for Shepard. There was only one problem. The hatch that the basket was parked next to was sealed with 70 (Yes… SEVENTY) bolts each or which had to be removed with a wrench, individually, by hand, from the outside. You see these were not the "explosive bolts" used on later Mercury spacecraft- these were good old-fashioned twist 'em in with a wrench by hand bolts. They made the cherry picker parked next to Shepard's spacecraft absolutely useless. In an on the pad emergency that would require Shepard to quickly evacuate his spacecraft there was simply no way for him to get himself out from the inside. The other route of egress was by way of a forward opening. This was used after splashdown and was actually the way that Shepard got out following the flight. It involved the use of a plug hatch in the forward end of the capsule. The astronaut removed his helmet and contorted himself around to squeeze past the instrument panel and out the top of the spacecraft. As the vehicle sat on the pad, however, this hatch had the entire launch escape tower and main parachutes on top of it and thus was also useless for escape. So, the big yellow cherry-picker was nothing more than window-dressing as far as Freedom 7 was concerned.

Cherry Picker "Escape" System

So, although the flight of Freedom 7 was a historic event that was planned to the smallest detail, there were still some odd aspects to it. The legends and myths about the flight grew on their own plus a little help by TV and movie producers who know and care nothing about spaceflight.

Although Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev called the flight of Freedom 7 "A flea's jump," Shepard's flight was 100% successful. To many Americans it was a grand-slam home run scored in a game of spaceflight with the Soviets were we had previously been hitting foul balls and striking out. The flight helped influence President Kennedy to set the nation's course toward a landing on the moon. Additionally, in the wake of the Bay of Pigs political disaster, the Freedom 7 mission was the first major positive political event in the Kennedy administration. Overall, May 5th, 1961 was a very good day in the free world… the oddities, myths and legends aside.

FMI: www.nasa.gov