posted 06-22-2005 04:53 PM               

I'm particularly thinking in terms of what would have happened to Gordon Cooper. Would there have been a MA-10 flight (not necessarily the 3-day flight that was suggested, but maybe just another 34-hour flight like MA-9), or was there only ever going to be four Atlas flights?

posted 06-22-2005 07:50 PM               

Interviewing and briefing astronaut candidates, at the Pentagon, in 1959, NASA never specified the number of flights and pointedly asked the volunteers how they'd respond in the event they were NOT assigned to a single flight. Would they still sign on as astronauts? Would they still want to help?

Sure, everyone said.

In short, in 1959 and 1961 Gilruth didn't know how many spaceflights were in the cards. No one knew how many flights there would be. But seven candidates for flight seemed like the right number, given the caliber of the candidates and the abundance of talent.

My sense is that NASA thought they'd send about half of them into space — the other half would serve as alternates.

Had Deke taken MA-7, that means Wally Schirra, his backup, may not have gotten the follow-on flight (MA-8). Glenn's alternate, Carpenter, may have gotten the nod for MA-8, while Schirra might have snagged MA-9.

Forget about MA-10. It wasn't going to happen. Mercury was a success well before then. Gilruth was a public servant not into wasting taxpayers' money on proven technology and proven human factors.

On edit, I forgot: Your what-if assumes Deke would have flown a problem-free MA-7 — is that right? Or, if he encountered MA-7's problems, Slayton would have done as well as Carpenter?

posted 06-22-2005 09:36 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by KC Stoever:
They were surprised only once: when after Shepard's flight, JFK said "Let's go to the moon."

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On April 13, 1961, Robert Seamans and George Low testified before the House Manned Space Subcommittee and advised the committee that it was possible to land a man on the Moon by 1967 (1967 was the 50th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and it was common thinking in American political circles that the USSR would attempt a lunar landing in that year).

JFK asked LBJ to report on NASA's ability the time line required to land a man on the Moon and safely return them to Earth.

Remember the Saturn was in construction by this time and the F-1 engine had been on the design table since 1955. The necessary pieces of the puzzle were in place by the time LBJ returned with his report in May of 1961.

Dr. Richard Battin of Draper Labs had already lead a team that determined how to navigate to the planets in 1959 and Draper had actually designed a Mars probe to use orbital mechanics to fly to Mars, take one picture and return to Earth. So the parts were coming together as JFK was attempting to determine whether the Apollo Project as feasible.

The basic tenets of the Mercury Project were submitted as results in a study on Manned Spaceflight by George Low completed on February 7, 1961.

As for the MA-10 mission, Dr. Seamens has recently written, "Were we planning a Mercury 10 mission? This possibility had never been presented to me in detail, but I was dead set against it. We had jury-rigged our way with Mercury and had successfully completed our goals. Why risk a mission of several days on the Mercury spacecraft when Gemini was designed for missions of two weeks or more?" ("Project Apollo: The Tough Decisions," NASA Monograph No. 37).

posted 06-23-2005 10:52 AM               

Webb knew about it, for example, and was focused on how to get the money for it well before JFK's announcement. Gilruth in his NASM oral history, however, recalls he was "aghast" to hear the president address Congress. He had been briefing the president (while Webb had been working the funding end) about possible lunar missions (and how the Americans could score a much-needed space first). But he was still, as he says, "aghast."

posted 06-23-2005 03:47 PM               

Ted Sorinsen had sent the space portion of Kennedy's May 25, 1961 Special State of the Union speech to Jim Webb for his review. The speech originally set a goal of landing a man on the Moon by 1967. Webb requested a change to the end of decade.

posted 06-24-2005 03:09 PM               

I've read "For Spacious Skies" (great book KC) and believe that whoever had flown MA-7, would have run into the same problems regarding the fuel usage. I like to think Deke would have completed the mission will no ill-effects — apart from the technical ones — which means come the Autumn of 1963 NASA would have been faced with the following situation:

• The possibility that the Russians were planning to go to the moon by 1967
  
• A MA-10 capsule ready to go
  
• A trained Mercury astronaut (Gordo) ready to go
  
• An eighteen month delay before Gemini would fly

posted 07-01-2005 11:31 AM               

(For Rene Carpenter's account, see the chapter, "The Color of Fire," in Carpenter's bio, "For Spacious Skies.")

Rene Carpenter reminds me that Shepard used this rare opportunity to lobby for MA-10, and the lunar program. Webb found out about the lobbying effort later and was furious.

posted 07-01-2005 02:06 PM               

Webb's vision for NASA was to establish a preeminence in Space. The lunar landing was part of the entire program, but not the entire reason for NASA.

Brainard Holmes continued to press the issue. JFK was a proponent of getting to the Moon quickly. Webb had to produce a report that advised the President of the reasons why NASA had to take a multipronged approach to space exploration.

posted 07-06-2005 08:16 PM               

Originally each astronaut was to make one suborbital flight and one orbital flight. Several things changed this. The Kennedy announcement being one of them. This meant the program needed to be accelerated. Also the fact that Russia launched Gherman Titov into orbit for a whole day when we had about 32 minutes of spaceflight time between two astronauts. America was looking bad.

posted 04-18-2006 01:36 PM               

Here is what This New Ocean has to say about the Mercury 10 mission:

On June 6 and 7, 1963, Brainerd Holmes, Gilruth, Walter Williams, and Kleinknecht met with Administrator Webb, Hugh L. Dryden, and Seamans in Washington to make a final decision on whether to fly an MA-10 mission. President Kennedy had clearly left the decision up to NASA. Webb listened thoughtfully to the presentations of each NASA official, and although both he and President Kennedy had heard the Mercury astronauts' plea for one more Mercury mission, Administrator Webb announced before the Senate space committee on June 12, 1963, that "we will not have another Mercury flight."61 It was to be 22 months before another American manned space flight.

posted 04-18-2006 02:02 PM               

After MR-3, Kennedy's lunar landing speech and start of Mercury Mark-II (Gemini) all changed.

posted 04-18-2006 08:27 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
Shepard was so enthusiastic about flying the "extra" capsule or Mercury Capsule 15B that he had "Freedom 7 II" painted on its side.

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posted 04-19-2006 07:59 AM               

Excerpt from the oral history of Jim McBarron (head of Space Suit section, Crew Systems Division) -

A lot of people don't realize that there was an MA-10 Mercury flight scheduled at one point, and we were working on an improved suit for that flight that provided increased comfort and increased stay time on orbit for the crew member... Actually, it was an MA-10 suit made by B.F.Goodrich.

posted 04-19-2006 09:58 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Matt T:
Shepard doesn't seem to have been alone in thinking this flight was a genuine possibility....

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But about "Freedon 7 II"... The standard story aside, does anyone know the provenance of the painted logo on the side of spacecraft 15B? When did it first appear? I had a brief email exchange with Dwayne Day, who said that NASA's arrangement with the Smithsonian came after someone observed a Gemini capsule being paraded through the streets somewhere. Isn't it possible that the paint job was applied some time after the spacecraft was "decommissioned" but before it came under the control of the Smithsonian?

posted 08-10-2006 09:48 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by John Charles:
But about "Freedon 7 II"... The standard story aside, does anyone know the provenance of the painted logo on the side of spacecraft 15B? When did it first appear?

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Reflecting Shepard's hope of flying in space again, he had the name 'Freedom 7 II' painted on the spacecraft in tribute to his historic 1961 capsule, "Freedom 7."

posted 08-11-2006 11:35 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by spaced out:
...he believed that there would probably be further Gemini flights after the Apollo missions.

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posted 08-12-2006 02:24 PM            

Scott Carpenter told an audience at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' Second Manned Space Flight Meeting in Dallas, Texas, that the Mercury program would culminate with the 1-day mission of Gordon Cooper. (22 April 1963)

posted 08-12-2006 06:53 PM               

I do know that Al Shepard vigorously lobbied a genial President Kennedy at the White House for Gordo's postflight White House ceremony. Rene Carpenter heard him.

And James Webb had a fit. An absolute fit. About Al's effort to wrangle another Mercury flight.

John Glenn, as it happens, couldn't be there to lobby for the flight himself. He was in Japan with Annie on a goodwill tour.

I hope to have pictures up of this informal cocktail hour at the White House, May 1963 — a party of CCG-SSS — as Carpenter's website goes up.

posted 08-12-2006 10:11 PM            

Astronautix does give Shepard credit for the name-painting. But, of its references that I checked, Baker's History of Manned Space Flight says nothing about it, and even says that any plans for flights after Cooper's MA-9 were cancelled before Schirra's flight in September 1962.

Another source for the Astronautix article that I checked online, the Mercury One-Day Mission final report of June 1963, mentions only that Spacecraft 15B was being prepared as a backup to MA-9, and that all such preparations were discontinued on June 15, 1963.

(Note that Astronautix is a rich source of fascinating information, but that — as with many Internet sources — it must be taken with a grain of salt.)

Clearly, someone painted the name "Freedom 7-II" onto the flank of Spacecraft 15B. I saw it and photographed it myself, several years ago when it was on display at NASA Ames. But I do not think that the evidence is strong that Shepard was directly involved, and in fact I think a case can be made that he was not.

posted 07-03-2007 06:19 PM               

In the real world it was Al Shepard that was assigned to MA-10, but he did not get to fly the mission because NASA management determined that they had learned all that they could from the Mercury flights.

Would Shepard have "competed" with Carpenter if NASA went ahead with MA-10, or would the assignment have naturally gone to Carpenter?

posted 07-04-2007 10:01 AM               

Now did Jim Webb bump Slayton to show everyone who was boss? After Mrs. Glenn refused LBJ entrance into her house. That I don't know about. It does seem odd.

posted 07-04-2007 11:56 AM               

The injustice came in keeping Slayton grounded for the next decade.

"Bill Douglas didn't think his heartbeat was anything to worry about. I just don't know."

posted 07-04-2007 12:45 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lou Chinal:
...If Slayton had flown MA-7 I don't know the order that would have come after. You could probably speculate about that for a long time. But I don't think there would have been an MA-10...

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• in January 1961, Gilruth announced Shepard and Grissom as MR-3 and MR-4 pilots, respectively, with Glenn as backup to both. The next flight assignment went to Glenn.
  
• in November 1961, Gilruth named Glenn to MA-6 and Slayton to MA-7, with Carpenter and Schirra as their backups, respectively.
  
• might we at least entertain the notion that Gilruth (or Slayton, or whoever might be assigning the next Mercury pilots) would have named Carpenter to MA-8 and Schirra to MA-9, perhaps with Cooper as backup to both (as had been the case with Glenn)?
  
• assuming no MA-10, then how about the first Gemini flight, Gemini-3? Did NASA "owe" Cooper that flight? If so, did NASA "owe" him the command pilot seat? (Only 3 of 10 Gemini crews had rookies as command pilots, in reality.) What if Gilruth (or Slayton, or whoever) wanted a flown pilot as command pilot for Gemini-3? Shepard would have been an obvious choice. But it is entertaining to imagine the public and private spectacles of a Shepard-Cooper crew!

posted 07-04-2007 03:33 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Charles:
Dr. Lawrence Lamb, of the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine, was one of them...

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Lamb must therefore be the Brooks AFB physician described (but not identified) in "This New Ocean," which I cite in my discussion of the "Slayton Case." I write:

Although rare in highly fit 35-year-olds like Slayton, the condition [atrial fibrillation] was not initially viewed as an impediment to his career as an astronaut or pilot. The matter was dropped. But as flight assignments were made and announced in 1961 and 1962, a member of the internal medicine staff at Brooks A.F.B. wrote a letter to NASA administrator James Webb. His recommendation: 'Slayton should not be assigned a flight.'

My reading of the NASA account in "This New Ocean" (and my thinking about the timeline) leads me to believe that Dr. Lamb wrote in confidence to Jim Webb who then placed it in a file.

Why was Deke sent to Brooks? Dr. Douglas sent him to Brooks, reasoning that Deke was an air force officer on loan to NASA and should therefore be evaluated by USAF doctors. Lamb probably has the dates for Deke's evaluations in his book--but it may have been as early as the fall of 1959. Deke's cardiac anomaly was first diagnosed at Johnsville in August 1959, prior to the AMAL centrifuge runs.

Anyway, Webb appears to have remembered the Lamb letter (if it was Lamb) on something like January 2, 1962.

This is about when Webb revived the inquiry, I think on the basis of this worrying medical dissent he had received two years before.

The Slayton case eventually went to a three-man panel of nationally recognized cardiologists, according to TNO, "Proctor Harvey, professor of cardiology, Georgetown University; Thomas Mattingly, heart specialist, Washington Hospital Center; and Eugene Braunwall, National Institutes of Health."

I have an idea that Dr. Paul Dudley White, Dwight Eisenhower's own heart specialist, also saw Deke and may have informally consulted with the panel.

posted 07-06-2007 08:01 PM               

Prime-Alternates:

• Shepard-Glenn (MR-3) suborbital
  
• Grissom-Glenn (MR-4) suborbital
  
• Glenn-Carpenter (MA-6) orbital
  
• Slayton-Schirra (MA-7) SCRATCH
  
  
• Carpenter-Schirra (MA-7)
  
• Schirra-Cooper (MA-8)
  
• Cooper-Shepard (MA-9)

posted 07-09-2007 06:27 PM               

• MA-6 Glenn (Carpenter) 3 orbits
  
• MA-7 Slayton (Schirra) 3 orbits
  
• MA-8 Carpenter (Cooper) 6 orbits
  
• MA-9 Schirra 6 orbits
  
• MA-10 Cooper 18 orbits

posted 07-10-2007 02:36 PM               

In 1986, I asked the question, as I knew Deke, and he had just visited us for Al Shepard's 25 anniversary celebration in Los Angeles. Bill was frank in his answer. He had been overruled in the Slayton decision, and had been so frustrated with the administration decision that as chance provided, he was an Air Force officer due for reassignment, and over many objections (like the astronauts) he took on another assignment and shortly afterwards retired from the Air Force.

posted 08-31-2007 07:14 AM               

Those were two of the three factors that messed up Carpenter's reentry and he was a dang good pilot to get the thing oriented as well as he did for his reentry burn. But the final factor that was totally out of his control were the three retrograde solid rockets were under strength when they fired. So even if he had been bang on with his attitude and saved his fuel, he STILL would have landed long. Being a hair off in the thruster firing was the smallest factor in the overshoot distance.