Epic Rivalry

by Von Hardesty

  Physicists in the 19th century were perfectly capable of calculating thrust equations, and in working out the amount of thrust contained in a given quantity of liquid rocket fuel, they thought they had proved that an orbital rocket could never be built. They discovered the paradox that any rocket large enough to hold a given quantity of fuel would be too heavy for that fuel to get it into orbit. Make the rocket bigger or smaller as you like, any real-world construction sturdy enough to contain the fuel would be too heavy for that fuel to drive it to orbital velocity. The physicists and engineers tried many approaches to the problem, but it seemed intractable.

  Years later when Wernher von Braun’s team developed the V-2 rocket in Germany, they made so many engineering advances that British intelligence dismissed early reports of the rocket as fiction, but it was still constrained by the old paradox equations. While a modified V-2 could reach into space, it could only fall back down again afterwards. But von Braun knew where to go from here.

  Russian theorist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky had cracked the paradox early in the 20th century by inventing the idea of staging: A rocket built with segmented fuel tanks could drop off each fuel tank as it ran dry, reducing the amount of weight the remaining fuel had to carry. By the last stage, the fuel would be driving only a small vehicle, and this had a chance of making it into orbit. The engineering of a sufficiently lightweight rocket vehicle would still be tough, but it would not be impossible. In staged rockets lay the promise of achieving orbit.

  This was precisely the solution employed during the space race, which saw the first satellites driven into orbit by multi-staged rockets. The Soviet R-7 consisted of a core rocket with the Sputnik satellite perched in the nose cone; four strap-on additional booster components provided the launch thrust and were dropped when depleted, leaving the center “sustainer” engine to drive the rocket still higher with its lighter load. America’s first satellite, Explorer 1, was carried into space by a vertical sequence of four stages, if you count the satellite’s own built-in rocket. In the beginning, these rockets needed every last ounce of thrust to succeed.

  Placing heavier payloads into orbit would take larger rockets, which both the United States and the U.S.S.R. proceeded to build over the next several years. Engineers on both sides sought creative solutions to increasing the performance of their rocket designs. Just making a rocket strong enough to stand up required a minimum amount of structure, of course—or did it? The American designers of the Atlas rocket had the idea of thinning the tank design to save weight until the hull was no thicker than a dime. Building this design gave them in essence a giant stainless steel balloon. This super-thin tank could not even stand up under its own weight, and von Braun’s conservative German engineers were very dubious of the radical design. The trick was that the rocket built this way would stand up just fine as long as it was pressurized with air or fuel. Like a balloon, the tank became rigid when filled and pressurized, enough so that it would withstand even launch stresses. The Atlas actually worked and eventually well enough that John Glenn flew in his Mercury capsule atop such a “balloon” rocket.

  Engineers have since sought further rocket performance in lightweight fuels, such as liquid hydrogen, and in more powerful rocket engines of many types. In the last 50 years, however, the basic facts of rocket engineering have not changed, and to attain orbit, rockets still rely on multiple stages and all the Earth-rotational launch assist they can get.

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  John Glenn poses with the Friendship 7 capsule he rode into orbit, February 1962.

  6

  THE SPACE RACE QUICKENS

  On February 20, 1962, the eyes of the nation focused intently on Cape Canaveral: On this launch date the first American would be catapulted into Earth orbit. Mercury astronaut John H. Glenn, Jr., had received the coveted nod to make the flight. An Ohioan by birth, Glenn had been a Marine pilot, a combat veteran of World War II and Korea, and a celebrated test pilot. In July 1957, Glenn set a new transcontinental speed record of 3 hours, 23 minutes, and 8.4 seconds, a remarkable aerial feat—his average cruising speed was supersonic. NASA chose Glenn for this high-risk space mission in no small measure for his impressive blend of flight experience, technical skill, and ebullient personality.

  An Atlas missile—upgraded and “man-rated” for NASA use—had been selected as the booster rocket. Atop the Atlas, Glenn occupied a cramped seat in Friendship 7, the small cone-shaped command module. News crews from the major networks had descended on the Cape in large numbers, offering continuous TV coverage from dawn to dusk. The warm temperature, a comfortable 70°F, attracted a huge crowd of onlookers who had camped out on the nearby beaches to observe the launch. Cape Canaveral had acquired new fame as the staging area for America’s still-troubled space program. In the four years after Sputnik, NASA had imposed its footprint on the Cape with the construction of assembly buildings, hangars, launch pads, and support facilities.1 Most Americans viewed the successful launch of Project Mercury’s Friendship 7 as a way to recoup national prestige and narrow the perceived space gap with the Russians.

  The long-anticipated orbital mission by Glenn had been burdened with no less than 10 postponements. NASA first announced January 16, 1962, as the date for the launch. Faced with technical difficulties with the Atlas fuel tanks, NASA had abandoned the original date. New launch times followed in a dizzying pattern of announcements and last-minute cancellations, seemingly issued day after day. NASA technicians wrestled with an endless round of technical snafus and bad weather. For Glenn and the vast audience of onlookers, frustration reached a crescendo on January 27, when the countdown reached T minus 20 minutes only to be cancelled, this time by an act of God when heavy clouds suddenly swept over the Cape Canaveral complex.

  The month of January gave way to February as NASA technicians struggled with a fuel-leak problem on the Atlas booster. Having solved this problem, NASA set February 15 as the launch date, only to abandon the effort with the return of inclement weather. Finally, February 20 arrived full of promise—no apparent technical glitches and excellent weather conditions. The delays—played out in full public view—had reinforced the widespread perception that the United States, indeed, was behind the Russians. The year before, the Russians had made two orbital flights: The first, by Yuri Gagarin, had established a dramatic milestone, the first passage of a human into outer space; the second, by German Titov, had recorded no fewer than 17 orbits of the Earth. Even though overshadowed by the Russians, NASA persisted with its highly scripted plans, offering assurances of ultimate success and seeking to build public confidence.

  Glenn brought to the mission the dedication and élan of a test pilot. He appeared to many as a fitting embodiment of the heroic aura surrounding the Mercury astronauts. Glenn knew of the risks associated with the February 20 launch. At the time, he made no reference to this haunting specter, but decades later he confessed to nagging doubts he—and others—felt about the Atlas booster. This general apprehension stemmed from an incident in their first months of training, when the entire company of Mercury astronauts had been flown to the Cape to observe an Atlas missile launch. At the time the Atlas had undergone a series of modifications to adapt it for use as the booster for future Mercury missions. This process of “man-rating” the missile appeared complete, or nearly so.

  For the launch of the Atlas, the astronauts were stationed in the camera platform area, a mere 1,200 feet from the launch pad. The night was clear and cloudless, perfect for observing the firing from this ideal vantage point. At ignition, the fiery thrust of the rocket engines pushed the Atlas skyward with a mighty roar. The brilliant light from the exhaust illuminated the expansive launch area. Initially, the Atlas followed the planned trajectory flawlessly, powering upward into the night sky. Then around 37,000 feet, the point of “max Q” or maximum aerodynamic pressure, the rocket exploded suddenly. “It looked as if an atomic bomb had exploded above us,” Glenn observed. This effort at confidence-building by t
he Mercury program had failed in its objective to reassure the astronauts. NASA continued to upgrade the Atlas and achieved success in transforming it into a reliable rocket, yet, as Glenn later confessed, memories of that ill-fated night launch lingered in his memory when he boarded Friendship 7 on that February morning.2

  Glenn waited patiently through two hours and 17 minutes of holds before liftoff. When the Atlas engines roared to life, Friendship 7 slowly rose from the pad at Cape Canaveral in a conflagration of fire and smoke, taking a mere 13 seconds to reach transonic speed. At two minutes and 14 seconds into the flight, the booster engines shut down and dropped away. On schedule, the escape tower was jettisoned. As the spacecraft pitched slightly, Glenn had his first view of Earth from orbit. Even as he monitored the controls and made the necessary systems checks, he found time to peer out the cockpit window to capture snapshots of the unfolding scenery from orbit. As Friendship 7 moved down the Atlantic range, the Canary Islands came into view, and he could see the far shores of Africa. The sky above had turned black—an enveloping dome that framed the distant horizon with its ever-shifting hues of blue. As he glanced downward, he saw heavy cloud formations. At this moment, flying in zero gravity, he was moving at 17,544 miles per hour on an orbital path nearly 125 miles above the surface of the planet. The liftoff and early stages of the flight had gone well. The separated Atlas rocket now trailed behind Friendship 7, caught in an erratic tumbling motion and slowly receding from view. Glenn’s report to Mission Control that the view was “tremendous” erred on the side of brevity and in no way captured the exhilarating experience of flying in Earth orbit.3

  The first of what became three orbits turned out to be carefree for the most part. Friendship 7 crossed into Africa above Kano, Nigeria, where NASA had set up one of its global tracking stations to allow for regular communications and precise control of the orbiting capsule. Glenn then flew across the Indian Ocean toward Australia. Now he was in place to view his first sunset. This passage through the night-side phase was followed by a spectacular sunrise. On this fast-moving circumnavigation of the planet the night lasted for 45 minutes. And every five minutes, Glenn shifted his radio communications with a new capsule communicator (capcom) stationed at a tracking station along the orbital path. During this first orbit Glenn reported one strange phenomenon—the appearance of “fireflies,” or brilliantly lighted specks, on the outside of the capsule. This peculiar and unanticipated event, subsequently observed during the flight of Scott Carpenter, perplexed Glenn. It was later explained as ice crystals formed from escaping fluids that had frozen on the capsule.4

  The flight of Friendship 7, however, soon encountered a sequence of real problems, one minor in nature, the other life threatening. Even before the end of the first orbit, Glenn noticed that the automatic attitude control system was malfunctioning, prompting a persistent drift to the right. To remedy the situation, he shifted to manual control and placed the spacecraft on a proper path. A second problem, and one that NASA’s capcoms were slow to share with Glenn, was the alarming telemetry suggesting that Friendship 7’s heat shield and the compressed Landing Bag Deploy were not attached in the locked position. If this reading were accurate, the critical heat shield was being held in place only by the straps of the retro-rockets. Repeated queries from NASA control concerning the problem were less than candid. Only with time did Glenn realize the scope of the problem, and later he would complain forcefully that he should have been informed. As a veteran test pilot, Glenn was angered at this deviation from protocol. He remarked later that if the NASA controllers thought that any information should be held from a pilot, then that pilot should not be in the cockpit.5

  The heat shield problem led to the decision to bring Glenn down as soon as possible, to be accomplished after the third orbit. To reduce the risk of losing the heat shield on reentry—a catastrophic event assuring the immolation of the Mercury astronaut—NASA controllers decided to allow the retro-rocket package to remain in place during the fiery passage through the upper atmosphere. The retro-rockets were essential to slow Friendship 7 into a gradual descent into the atmosphere. Mission control speculated that if the fuel in the retro-rockets burned cleanly, there would be no problem—the retro-rockets would be burned away during the descent. This maneuver became the most dangerous part of the mission. Glenn reported that he could see chunks of the straps pass his window as the retro-pack was burned away. The reentry path called for Friendship 7 to follow a long glide across the continental United States and then to splash down in the Atlantic. The capsule landed about 40 miles from its targeted landing zone near Bermuda.6

  Glenn had been aloft for almost five hours. Orbital flight was a unique experience for these pioneering astronauts, evoking a new visual perspective on Earth. Along the fast-paced orbital journey, he observed the shifting colors of the planet’s thin atmosphere—a band of light that reflected brilliant hues of blue and white. He could see clearly the blunt edge of the atmosphere—an extraordinary vantage point denied to other mortals. Glenn, alone in the zero gravity, comprehended fully the atmosphere’s enveloping and life-sustaining presence and seeming fragility. “The band,” Glenn observed, “is extremely bright just as the sun sets, but as time passes the bottom layer becomes a bright orange and then fades into reds, then on into the darker colors, and finally off into the blues and blacks.”7

  Seeing the atmosphere from space also reinforced an appreciation for the atmosphere’s role as the shield against cosmic radiation—no life on the blue planet would have been possible without this thin layer of protection. At the time of the Glenn flight—and the earlier Gagarin and Titov orbital missions—a significant amount of speculation still existed about what would happen to a human flying above this atmospheric shield: What dire impact might result from zero gravity, cosmic rays, or even meteor bombardment? Glenn returned without any apparent negative effects, as did his Russian counterparts. The question of human vulnerability to the dangers of outer space would persist throughout the decade of the 1960s.

  Glenn’s successful mission triggered a vast outpouring of enthusiasm, reminiscent of Charles Lindbergh’s reception after his epic transatlantic flight of 1927. The astronaut from New Concord, Ohio, became an American icon overnight. President Kennedy called Glenn shortly after his splashdown and recovery in the Atlantic. After two days of debriefing on Grand Turk Island, Glenn returned home to a tumultuous welcome. Vice President Lyndon Johnson flew down from Washington to escort Glenn back to Cape Canaveral. There he was reunited with his wife, Annie, and his two teenage children, David and Lyn. Welcoming signs at the Cape greeted Glenn, “Welcome to Earth.” Later, President Kennedy flew in to greet Glenn. Kennedy and his staff had been glued to the television coverage for the entire saga of Friendship 7, following nervously the tense reentry and recovery phases of the space mission. Received as a genuine American hero, Glenn made a long tour to Washington for a more formal reception with President Kennedy and a ticker-tape parade in New York City. Glenn fit the heroic mold comfortably—he was articulate, charming, and gregarious. Speaking to the NASA community at the Cape, he spoke extemporaneously and caught the mood of the moment: “There is much acclaim for this flight, but it is only one step in a long program. I’d like all of you who worked on it to feel that I am your representative. I’m getting the attention for all the thousands of you who worked on it.”8

  The post-Glenn Mercury flights extended the American presence in Earth orbit. In May 1962, Scott Carpenter in Aurora 7 replicated the Glenn mission, but experienced a splashdown 250 miles distant from the targeted landing site. The following October, Walter Schirra in Sigma 7 sent back the first televised broadcast by NASA from orbit, and he doubled the number of orbits flown by Glenn. The final Mercury mission took place in May 1963. Gordon Cooper in Faith 7 executed the most successful space mission to date, orbiting the Earth 22 times. Mercury represented a great success for NASA.

  SOVIET COSMONAUTS AT THE CUTTING EDGE

  The dramatic succ
ess of John Glenn in Friendship 7 marked an important milestone for Project Mercury and America’s manned space program. If the suborbital flights of Shepard and Grissom had been perceived as cautious and telltale signs of NASA’s failure to keep pace with the Soviet space program, Glenn’s three orbits affirmed that the United States was now competitive with the mysterious Chief Designer and his minions at Baikonur. But the triumphal Glenn saga still remained modest when compared with German Titov’s impressive 17 orbits in August 1961. The final Mercury missions by M. Scott Carpenter and Gordon Cooper narrowed the gap. Yet the Soviet Union still occupied the pole position in the high stakes “space race”—and at Baikonur, plans were in place to reassert Soviet leadership in the competitive world of space exploration.

  The Vostok launches gave clear evidence that the Soviets were on a path to establish some new benchmarks in manned spaceflight. Following the 1961 Gagarin flight were a total of six Vostok missions through June 1963. Broadly considered, the Soviet effort mirrored the same goal of Project Mercury—the urgent priority to perfect the baseline technology needed to sustain a long-term program of space exploration, culminating in a lunar mission. The first benchmark Vostok spectacular occurred on August 11-12, 1962: Vostok 3 with cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev and Vostok 4 with cosmonaut Pavel Popovich were launched into orbit on successive days. This extraordinary scene of two spacecraft in orbit simultaneously struck many as an important benchmark—and concrete evidence of the Soviet Union’s muscular space program. The two new Vostok cosmonauts were polar opposites in personality. Nikolayev, a former lumberjack before he became an air force pilot, was quiet, disciplined, cool in any emergency, and highly respected by his superiors for his technical skills. Popovich, a Ukrainian by birth and an experienced test pilot, was the same age as Nikolayev (32 years old), but he had a more engaging personality, being an extrovert by nature. Their spacecraft did not possess the capability to maneuver or dock, but scripted launches from Baikonur placed them in close parallel orbits, passing within three miles of each other. This rendezvous in space represented a remarkable feat of coordination. The Soviets not only executed the first group flight, but also established a new record for duration in space: Nikolayev completed 64 Earth orbits, Popovich another 48.9