The main scientific
objective of project Mercury was to determine man's
capabilities in a space environment and in those
environments to which he will be subject upon going into
and returning from space. A few of the basic flight
problems included: The development of an automatic escape
system, vehicle control during insertion, behaviour of
space systems, evaluation of pilots capabilities in space,
in flight monitoring, retrofire and re-entry manoeuvres and
landing and recovery.
The name "Freedom Seven"
was Alan Shepard's choice. "Freedom" because it was
patriotic and "Seven" because it was the seventh Mercury
capsule produced. It also represented the seven Mercury
astronauts. To help relieve any tension Shepard might have
built up before his flight, Glenn pasted a little sign on
the spacecraft instrument panel, reading "No handball
playing here." This bit of levity hearkened back to their
training days.
At T-15 minutes it was
necessary to hold the count again to make a final check of
the real-time trajectory computer. A small electrical part
had a problem and this resulted in an hour and twenty six
minute delay. Shepard was on top of the Redstone for so
long now that he had to urinate. "Gordo!" he said, talking
to Gordon Cooper, a fellow Mercury Seven astronaut and
principal pre-launch communicator. "Go, Alan." "Man, I got
to pee." "You what?" "You heard me. I've got to pee. I've
been up here forever."
Shepard wanted to be let
out but there wasn't time to reassemble the White Room.
Thinking that he could be up there for hours, he told them
he was going to do it in his suit. Unfortunately, there
was no urine collection system and the medics were
concerned he would short-circuit the leads. "Tell 'em to
turn the power off!" Alan snapped. Cooper, with a chuckle
in his voice said, "Okay, Alan. Power's off. Go to it."
Shepard couldn't hold
back any longer and the liquid pooled in the small of his
back. His heavy undergarment soaked up the urine, and with
100 percent oxygen flowing through the suit he was soon
dry. The countdown resumed.
At T- minus two minutes
and forty seconds and counting, Shepard heard that dreaded
word again, "Hold". There was a little computer problem.
Getting frustrated, he yelled, "I've been in here more
than three hours. I'm a hell of a lot cooler than you
guys. Why don't you just fix your little problem and light
this candle?"
They fixed the problem
and the countdown proceeded until lift-off at 9:34 am EST
on 5/5/1961. Because of his excitement, Shepard said he
failed to hear much of the closing countdown, with the
exception of the firing command. During this period his
pulse rate rose from 80 per minute to 126 at the lift-off
signal. "You're on your way, Jose!" Deke Slayton shouted.
"Roger, lift-off, and the clock has started," Alan called
out.
Shepard saw the
umbilical cable supplying pre-launch electrical power to
the Mercury-Redstone and its supporting boom fall away. He
raised his hand to start the elapsed-time clock that
ticked off the seconds of the flight. The ride continued
smoothly for about 45 seconds; then the rocket, capsule,
and astronaut began vibrating. Conditioned to these
circumstances, Shepard realized that he was passing
through the transonic speed zone, where turbulence built
up. The buffeting became rugged at the point of maximum
aerodynamic pressures, about 88 seconds after lift-off;
Shepard's head and helmet were bouncing so hard that he
could not read his panel dials.
Pressed by 6 g at two
minutes after launch, Shepard still was able to report
"all systems go." The Redstone's engine shut down on
schedule at 142 seconds, having accelerated the astronaut
to a velocity of 5,134 miles per hour, close to the
nominal speed. After engine cut-off, Shepard heard the
tower-jettison rocket fire and turned his head to peer out
the port, hoping that he might see the smoke from the
pyrotechnics. There was no smoke, but the green
tower-jettison light on his panel assured him that the
pylon was gone. Shepard strained in his couch under an
acceleration that hit a peak g load of 6.3. Outside the
capsule the shingle temperature reached 220 degrees F, but
inside the cabin the temperature was only 91 degrees. The
astronaut was hardly perspiring in his pressure suit at 75
degrees.
When he tried to observe
the scene below him, Shepard immediately noticed that the
periscope had the medium grey filter in place. While
waiting on the pad, he had used this filter to eliminate
the glare of the intermittently bright sunlight and had
planned to remove the filter when he retracted the
periscope, just before launch. But being otherwise
occupied at the time, he had forgotten to make the change.
During spacecraft turnaround he tried to remove the
filter, but as he reached for the filter knob the pressure
gauge on his left wrist banged into the abort handle. He
carefully pulled his hand away. After that he forgot about
the intensity filter and observed the wondrous sights
below through the grey slide. "What a beautiful view!"
While riding down the
re-entry curve toward a water landing, Shepard again
assumed the fly-by-wire mode of control. As the re-entry
loads began to build up to a peak of 11.6 g, the
oscillations also increased moderately. As soon as the
highest g point had passed and the spacecraft had
steadied, Shepard left fly-by-wire and cut in the
automatic control system. As the altimeter dial slipped
past 40,000 feet, the astronaut braced and listened
closely for the drogue mortar to fire. He gave the Cape a
reading of 30,000 feet, and 9000 feet later the drogue
snapped out without a kick. The antenna canister atop the
spacecraft blew off as planned at 10,000 feet, pulling the
main parachute with it. Shepard clearly saw and felt it in
its initial reefed and partially unfurled condition, which
prevented the lines from snapping. Within seconds it
spread to its 63-foot diameter, giving the astronaut a
reassuring jolt.
Freedom 7 splashed and
listed over into the water on the astronaut's right side,
about 60 degrees from an upright position. The chutes cast
loose automatically on impact to prevent dragging. As the
water sloshed over the ports, the spaceman saw the
fluorescing dye spreading over an ever increasing area.
Shepard quickly checked the spacecraft interior to see if
any leaks had resulted from impact. There were none; it
was dry. Now slowly Freedom 7 came to an upright position,
taking about a minute's time, and Shepard jubilantly
reported to Card-file 23, the communications airplane,
that he was all right. From beginning to end the flight
mission had been almost perfect.