posted 03-08-2006 11:18 AM               

where Jim Oberg, BTW, has a good retrospective on Walter Cronkite. There Dwayne Day tackles an urban legend regarding John Glenn's flight, which some books say, erroneously, was supposed to go seven orbits--but a supposed malfunction of his heatshield (never happened) meant he could only go three. Whoa.

Both MA-6 and MA-7 pilots were told after liftoff, "We have a Go, with a 7-orbit capability."

Carpenter explains that this merely indicated an optimal trajectory, at launch. Go for 7 was "the best report you could get. The injection trajectory could only be measured [by 1962 computers] downstream for 7 orbits. This was the best," Carpenter explains, "the programmed computer could do."

posted 03-15-2006 07:32 PM               

I mean..they couldn't put something like that on film if it weren't true, could they?

posted 03-17-2006 09:53 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Blackarrow:
Hawkman,
That simply meant that the orbit was stable enough to allow seven orbits. The mission was never intended to last more than three orbits.

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Note the smile at the end of the post. I was kidding.