The Right Stuff

In Chapter 8 Wolfe zooms out from the perspectives of the seven astronauts to consider the broader technological and political ramifications of Project Mercury, as well as its relation to rival endeavors like the Air Force X-series spacecraft.

Wolfe outlines the expectations NASA’s Project Mercury engineers have for the astronauts. The mission is the result of recent technical advances in computing power, without which the Mercury rocket and capsule could not fulfill their aim of spaceflight (141-42). “The astronaut has been added to the system as a redundant component” is the typical view of NASA scientists (143). Astronauts are not meant to be pilots in control of a spacecraft, but test subjects who will yield biomedical data about the effects of rocket flight.

Indeed, some experts had worried that military test pilots like some of the Seven would prove to be liabilities to Project Mercury, since they were accustomed to “always [doing] something” in the cockpit (143). On the contrary, the ideal astronaut as conceived by NASA engineers is “a man whose main talent was for doing nothing under stress,” such as a radar observer (143). The training for the Seven was therefore initially geared toward “a graded series of exposures” to the Mercury experience, that is, step-by-step simulations of the extreme and disorienting sensations bound up with rocket flight designed to get the astronauts used to the process (144).

In response, the Seven plead successfully for both integrating more flying into their training and changing the design of the space capsule to give them more control. Nevertheless, the perception that the astronauts are little better than the trained chimpanzees who will make the first Project Mercury flights persists in the military pilot community (147-54).

By mid-1960, enthusiasm for Project Mercury begins to wane. The X-15 program at Edwards, the Air Force project aimed at producing America’s first piloted spacecraft, is gaining momentum. Pilots Joe Walker (NASA) and Bob White (Air Force) are hitting speed and altitude targets for the X-15, which is now ahead of Project Mercury in the attempt to reach space (156-63). In fact, even the training regimen of Project Mercury builds on prior innovations at Edwards. By early 1961, as tensions escalate with the Soviet Union, the United States has a new president, John F. Kennedy, who is determined to make changes at NASA (163-68). Project Mercury’s star may have finally faded.

Chapter 9 covers the build-up to the successful launch of the first human being into space.

After two failed rocket tests at Cape Canaveral in the latter half of 1960 and the election of a new president, John F. Kennedy, the lagging Project Mercury is in danger of being shut down (164-66). According to Wolfe, this crisis precipitates a profound sense of solidarity at NASA, with everyone involved with Mercury redoubling their efforts. “All of them,” he writes, “astronauts, administrators, engineers, technicians, were suddenly in such trouble that a wagon-train phase began. Everyone, from top to bottom, began pulling together like pioneers besieged in the pass” (170).

Bob Gilruth, head of the mission, decides to hold “a peer vote” among the astronauts to select the first of the Seven who will take the flight into space. To the surprise and dismay of the frontrunner, John Glenn, Alan Shepard is chosen, with Glenn and Gus Grissom serving as his two backups. “After he, Glenn, had spent twenty-one months doing everything humanly possible to impress Gilruth and the rest of the brass, it had turned into a popularity contest among the boys” (173). Although Glenn makes cautious overtures to his superiors about possibly changing the decision, Shepard remains the “prime pilot” for Project Mercury (180-82).

Meanwhile, the increased pressure on NASA leads to developments in the chimpanzee tests for Project Mercury. On January 31, 1961, test subject Number 61, or Ham (an acronym for Holloman Aerospace Medical Center in New Mexico, where the astronaut chimpanzees were trained) is successfully launched into suborbital space and returns in one piece (174-79). A March date for Shepard’s mission is proposed, but the engineers insist on further testing that delays his flight until May 2 (183).

Just as NASA begins making final preparations for Shepard’s launch, another unforeseen bombshell comes out of the Soviet Union. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin becomes the first person to enter space (188-89). He completes one orbit of the Earth before landing safely in Russia. As with Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite put into space in 1957, the Americans have fallen short of the Soviet space program.