Space Adventurer 6

“Light this candle!”

May 2, 1961 was supposed to be the big day. A ballistic jump of the Mercury spaceship atop a Redstone rocket booster had been planned for that particular Tuesday. That in itself wouldn’t have been anything extraordinary, except that now, for the first time, there would be a human aboard the Mercury capsule. After the Soviets’ solar plexus punch to the American space program delivered courtesy of Yuri Gagarin on April 12, NASA was hoping to shorten at least partially the lead of its overseas rivals. But the identity of the first “citizen of the free world” to peek beyond the curtain of space was shrouded in secrecy. 

The final decision had been made already in January, but the official announcement merely declared that the first American in space was to be one of the triplet: John Glenn, Gus Grissom, and Alan Shepard. In doing so, NASA wanted to shield the future American hero from the unavoidable pressure of media interest. The three were training at full throttle. The fifteen minutes which the ballistic flight was projected to last were preceded by dozens of hours in simulators. May 2 was selected as the launch day. 

Unfortunately, the weather refused to cooperate on that day. The launch attempt was called off several hours before the Redstone booster engine ignition, while the astronaut didn’t even board the Mercury capsule. But that Tuesday yielded one small revelation nevertheless. One of the reporters managed to photograph the man supposed to be seated in the capsule. Within a few hours, the entire United States learned that their future hero was to be Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr.

Al Shepard was born on November 18, 1923 in the small town of Derry, New Hampshire. Already as a boy he displayed keen intellect, allowing him to skip an entire elementary school grade. Soon he took an interest in aviation and worked odd jobs at the airport to pay for flying lessons. In 1941 he enrolled at the Annapolis Naval Academy, successfully graduating in 1944. After a brief service aboard the Navy destroyer USS Cogswell, he was able to commence his dream of pilot training. He became a naval pilot and in 1950 he entered the US Navy Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Maryland. 

After earning test pilot wings, Shepard narrowly missed a chance to join the fighting in Korea, but as for adrenalin rush, he enjoyed plenty as a test pilot. Test pilots were just what the newly established NASA began to look for in 1959, and Al Shepard did not escape its attention. In April 1959, after undergoing an extremely demanding selection process, Shepard, together with his six other colleagues, was introduced to the American public as one of the “Mercury Seven,” the group of pilots chosen for the Mercury project. 

Now Alan waited for his moment. He shook off the launch postponement with a stiff shot of brandy and a long run on the beach. The new launch date was set for Friday, May 5. On that day Shepard squeezed himself into the cramped Mercury capsule which he named “Freedom 7” and was strapped into the anatomically fitted seat. This was not the end of the long wait, however. At first, the weather was once again unsuitable for launch. When finally the meteorologists gave the green light, a voltage transformer in the service gear of the launch ramp stubbornly wouldn’t cooperate. Then, one of the IBM computers in Maryland refused to behave in turn. At that point Shepard had been lying on his back in the capsule for three straight hours and certain bodily needs had begun to arise. 

Fellow astronaut Gordon Cooper, who served as the Mercury capsule communication officer, could not believe his ears when he heard Shepard’s request. Shepard repeated his words, adding that he’d been atop the rocket for an unbelievably long time, and simply had to relieve himself.  This presented a tremendous problem. The capsule hatch was secured by many dozens of bolts and if the mission control was to agree with its removal, the time delay would be prohibitively long. The only possibility was for Shepard to relieve himself inside the capsule, but his space suit was not designed for such a contingency. Moreover, there were worries that the moisture could short-circuit the electric wiring of the vital functions sensor array. 

A solution was found in the end: Mission control operators switched off the sensor and Shepard relieved himself at last, right in his space suit. The suit’s circulating oxygen quickly took care of the drying. The countdown could resume, but two minutes before launch another problem cropped up: The Redstone rocket oxygen tank was showing too high a pressure. Audibly irritated, Shepard addressed the mission control with a sentence that became history: “Why don’t you fix your little problem and light this candle?”

As if the launch pad equipment and even the booster itself had heard Shepard’s words, all had begun to cooperate. From that moment on, everything functioned absolutely flawlessly and at 09:34:13 local time the rocket lifted off its pad, headed for the blue skies. The main engine cut off after two minutes and twenty four seconds. “Freedom 7” separated from the booster and, carried by momentum, continued up toward apogee (the apex of its trajectory) at approximately 185 km altitude. 

Shepard experienced several minutes of weightlessness, the first American ever to do so. Through the port in the capsule wall and in the periscope by his knees, he could admire the Earth’s surface below.  Shepard was also the first human in history able to test the manual control of the capsule’s orientation in space. (Yuri Gagarin, the only person in space prior to Shepard, did have manual capsule attitude control at his disposal but its testing was not part of his flight plan.)  

The unforgettable moments were ticking by all too fast. Shepard barely managed to get a good look around before starting the downward leg of his trajectory. At the moment the capsule reached its apogee, the retro-engines fired and the astronaut began preparation for the fiery re-entry into the atmosphere.  Retro-rockets were not necessary during this suborbital flight: The capsule would return into the atmosphere without them as its velocity was too slow to begin orbiting the Earth. Nevertheless, testing their function and effect was essential for future orbital missions. 

Eight minutes after launch, the capsule was parting the increasingly dense layers of the atmosphere, decelerating substantially in the process. Shepard experienced crushing g-forces, peaking at 11.5 G. The astronaut’s body at that moment weighed 11.5 times its normal mass. Next, the breaking parachute opened, followed a moment later by the main one. At 09:49:35 local time, a mere 15 minutes and 22 seconds after launch, the Mercury capsule with Shepard inside it splashed down in the Atlantic swells. 

Alan Shepard became a national hero of the first magnitude on that day. Despite all the accolades, popularity, and offers he received, he longed to return to space, this time for more than just a quarter hour. He was named as backup for the fourth orbital flight of Mercury and he lobbied unsuccessfully to pilot the fifth, during which the capsule’s endurance would be tested to its very limits. In 1963 his wait was finally over: He became a member of the first crewed mission aboard the new Gemini spaceship. Alas, immediately after commencement of training, Shepard encountered serious problems with his balance and hearing. The diagnosis was devastating: Meniere’s syndrome meant immediate “grounding” and it appeared that for Shepard, space was now closed forever. He became Chief of the Astronaut Corps and expended his surfeit of energy on various entrepreneurial activities. He became a millionaire, but flying and journeys into space never ceased to lure him. 

In 1968 Shepard underwent an experimental surgery. The surgical solution was a success and in the spring of 1969, Shepard was officially cleared to fly. His appointment to the commander’s seat of the Apollo 14 main crew meant that in February 1971, Shepard became the only member of the legendary Mercury 7 to walk on the surface of the Moon. His terrestrial journey ended on July 21, 1998, but Alan Shepard remains forever a legend that helped us to open the path to the stars…