The Eagle Has Landed: The Story of Apollo 11

by Jeffrey Smith

  America’s fledgling space program was placed entirely under civilian leadership. In addition to Wernher von Braun and his Redstone Arsenal colleagues, NASA also acquired the Army’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Navy Vanguard program.

  As a further commitment to America’s space program, President Eisenhower signed into law the National Defense Act on September 2, 1958. Over the next four years, nearly a billion dollars would be appropriated to fund low interest loans for needy students seeking to become math, science, or foreign language teachers. Federal matching funds were set aside for public and private schools to purchase equipment and materials for teaching those disciplines. Nearly 60 million dollars was earmarked to fund 5,500 graduate fellowships in science, engineering, and foreign languages.

  On January 1, 1960, NASA’s George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, named in honor of President Eisenhower’s World War II mentor, officially went into operation at Huntsville, Alabama’s Redstone Arsenal. Wernher von Braun was appointed Director of the NASA facility, supervising 5,500 civil service employees and 1,189 on-site contractors.

  NASA also established the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The new facility would assume flight control and data retrieval responsibilities for NASA’s orbiting satellites.

  To fully establish its space exploration program, NASA was in need of a rocket launch facility. In 1946, the Pentagon had identified a 15,000-acre land tract along Florida’s Atlantic Coast as the ideal location for a missile launch site. The barrier island, known as Cape Canaveral, separated from the mainland by the Banana River, was isolated and remote, and unlikely to subject the civilian population to the hazards of accidental explosions. Once NASA came into existence, the Long Range Proving Ground at Cape Canaveral not only served as a missile test facility, but also as a space rocket launch site. The earliest manned space flights would lift-off from a section of Cape Canaveral known as ICBM row.

  The resulting socioeconomic impact on this rather remote section of the southern Atlantic Coast was dramatic. Between 1950 and 1968, the population of Brevard County, Florida increased from 23,000 to 239,000.

  Cape Canaveral was ideally located for eastbound space launches over the Atlantic Ocean, allowing rockets to follow the Earth’s natural rotation. Relatively near the equator, where the Earth’s rotational speed is greatest (1,038 miles per hour), the east coast of Florida provided launched rockets with a leg-up toward achieving the necessary orbital velocity of 17,500 miles per hour.

  Even with the birth of NASA, President Eisenhower never regarded manned space flight as a priority of his administration, and was perplexed by the “panic” generated by the Sputnik launch. Fiscally conservative, Eisenhower took pride in the fact that during his two-term presidency America had avoided war and maintained a solid defense program, without reckless spending. The President was determined to apply the same austerity to the space program.

  While he agreed to authorize the first manned space program, later named Project Mercury, Eisenhower refused to support the proposed Moon-landing program (Apollo). Wary of the powerful, revenue-consuming military-industrial complex, Eisenhower was unwilling to “hock his jewels” to achieve a manned lunar landing. NASA Administrator Keith Glennan privately agreed with the President: “If we fail to place a man on the Moon before 20 years from now, there is nothing lost.”

  Eager to end the Republican Party’s eight-year occupation of the White House, the two front runners for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, seized upon the issues of missile development and space exploration to campaign against the so-called malaise of the Eisenhower years. Once Kennedy secured the nomination and selected Johnson as his running mate, the Democratic ticket trumpeted the non-existent missile gap as evidence that America’s security was jeopardized by Soviet technological advances. President Eisenhower’s Science Advisor, James R. Killian, discussed this politically-motivated deception in his memoirs: “The drama of space stirred visions on the part of more than one politician that they might ride rockets to higher political ground.”

  When John F. Kennedy was elected President in November of 1960, NASA’s long-range space exploration program was granted a new lease on life. In February of 1961, a month after his inauguration, the new President appointed James Webb as NASA’s new Administrator. A lawyer by training, and a one-time oil company executive, Webb had also served as Budget Director and Under Secretary of State in the Truman Administration. With excellent business and organizational skills, the charismatic and politically adroit Webb successfully lobbied Congress to appropriate generous funding to the space agency. In 1960, a year before Webb’s appointment as Administrator, NASA’s annual budget was 500 million dollars. By 1965, the figure had grown to 5.2 billion dollars. From 1960 to 1965, the number of employees at the space agency ballooned from 10,000 to 36,000.

  The Soviets managed to stay at least one step ahead of the United States during the early years of space exploration. In 1959, alone, the Soviet Union sent three unmanned space probes to the Moon. In January of that year, Luna 1 became the first spacecraft to pass near the Moon. Missing its intended target by 3,700 miles, Luna 1 entered into orbit around the Sun, providing the first detailed photographs of the lunar surface. Luna 2, launched on September 12th, was deliberately crashed on the lunar surface, marking the first landing by a spacecraft on the Moon. In a marriage of technology and propaganda, at impact, Luna 2 scattered metal pendants on the lunar surface, effectively marking its territory.

  In October of 1959, Luna 3 entered in a high, elliptical, figure-eight Earth orbit, which propelled the probe around the Moon and back. Luna 3’s cameras recorded the first images of the Moon’s dark side, and the Soviets boldly christened two of the observed lunar maria as the Sea of Moscow and the Sea of Dreams.

  In a bold attempt to match the Soviet Union’s successes, NASA initiated Project Mercury in October of 1958. Abe Silverstein, Director of the Office of Space Flight Programs, was credited with selecting the name Mercury; in Greek mythology, Mercury, the Olympic messenger, was the son of Zeus and grandson of Atlas.

  The Mercury objective was to put a manned spacecraft into orbit and bring the astronaut home safely. Each mission would involve a single astronaut—the pilot would learn to maneuver the spacecraft, while testing the physiological effects of prolonged exposure to zero gravity. At this juncture, some aerospace medicine experts feared prolonged weightlessness could be hazardous, perhaps fateful, to humans.

  Strict criteria were established to select America’s first astronauts; the candidates had to be less than 40 years of age, under 5’ 11” tall (to comfortably fit inside a cramped space capsule), weigh less than 180 pounds, be active duty military pilots (with more than 1,500 hours of jet flight experience), and have earned a bachelor’s degree or “the equivalent.”

  The Eisenhower Administration established the selection criteria to prevent poorly-trained and perhaps undisciplined civilians from applying to become astronauts. In addition to their undeniable bravery, military pilots were accustomed to following orders; a trait that appealed to Eisenhower, the iconic World War II General. Many famed test pilots, who had gained notoriety for setting new jet air speed records in the post-World War II era, were excluded from the astronaut training program. Chuck Yeager, the first pilot to break the sound barrier (Mach 1), was disqualified because he had not attended college. Famed test pilots, Scott Crossfield and Joe Walker, were disqualified because of their civilian status. The veterans seemed hardly disappointed, believing that space flight in a “capsule” was not a genuine test of a pilot’s skills, and joked that the astronauts would be little more than “Spam in a can.”

  Among 540 active military test pilots, only 110 met the astronaut selection criteria. Based upon evaluations by their commanding officers and flight instructors, the list was subsequently narrowed to 69. After being interviewed by NASA officials and informed about the nature of astronaut training, 37 of the pi
lots elected not to participate. Of the remaining 32, 14 fell out during a series of rigorous physical, mental, and medical tests, leaving a final selection pool of 18 men.

  Concerns over the potential health hazards of weightlessness and the impact of powerful transverse G forces during the lift-off and re-entry phases of space flight led NASA medical experts to subject the astronaut candidates to an extensive battery of medical tests, some of which defied explanation. The tests were conducted at the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico—a facility specializing in aerospace medicine. John Glenn, who was among the 18 finalists, described the ordeal at the Lovelace Clinic: “They drew blood, took urine and stool samples, scraped our throats, measured the contents of our stomachs, gave us barium enemas, and submerged us in water tanks to record our total body volume. They shined lights into our eyes, ears, noses, and everywhere else. They measured our heart and pulse rates, blood pressure, brain waves, and muscular reactions to electric current. Their examination of the lower bowel was the most uncomfortable procedure I had ever experienced; a sigmoidal probe with a device those of us were tested nicknamed ‘steel el.’ Wires and tubes dangled from us like tentacles from a jellyfish. Nobody wanted to tell us what some of the stranger tests were for.”

  The astronaut candidates were also administered a wide battery of psychological tests, including Rorschach ink blots, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, the Thematic Apperception Test, and the Guilford-Zimmerman Spatial Visualization Test. Identifying psychopathology was of paramount importance to NASA officials, who were wary of an astronaut “cracking up” while flying in space.

  After eight days at the Lovelace Clinic, the prospective astronauts traveled to the Aeromedical Laboratories at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, where their physical fitness was measured on stationary bicycles, treadmills, and by repeatedly stepping up and down off of 20-inch-tall boxes. At the same time, the astronaut candidates were subjected to yet another series of unpleasant physiological tests. Cold water was injected into the test pilots’ ears to measure eye movements (nystagmus), and their feet were submerged in buckets of ice water to monitor changes in blood pressure and pulse. To measure lung capacity, the men were required to blow into tubes and keep a column of Mercury lifted for as long as possible. They were also placed inside heat chambers and baked to temperatures as high as 130 degrees Fahrenheit. To measure the pilots’ responses to 65,000-feet altitudes, they were required to climb inside special chambers, wearing only partially pressurized suits. Tilt tables were utilized to measure the severity of vertigo experienced by each man, while high speed centrifuges exposed them to gravitational forces of up to G-14 (G-1 equals the normal gravitational pull of the Earth; for every G of acceleration force, an individual is subjected to a multiple of his body weight—a 175-pound man at G-3 experiences a 525-pound force). The pilots were also locked inside a darkened, soundproof isolation chamber for three consecutive hours, without being informed, in advance, of the duration of their sensory deprivation. To assess their capacity for handling crisis situations, each man was tested on the idiot box—a contraption featuring multiple, simultaneously activated buzzers and flashing lights; each candidate was timed to see how fast he could extinguish the maddening array of the auditory and visual alarms.

  In the end, seven pilots were chosen for Project Mercury— Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, and Donald “Deke” Slayton. A cross section of the Armed forces was represented— Glenn was a Marine; Shepard, Carpenter, and Schirra were Navy pilots; Grissom, Slayton, and Cooper were Air Force men.

  The newly-christened Mercury 7 made their public debut on April 9, 1959. Sitting behind a raised table at the Dolly Madison House in Washington D.C.’s Lafayette Square, within sight of the White House, the astronauts, clad in civilian coats and ties, responded to questions from eager reporters. Life magazine writer, John Dille, characterized the fresh-faced astronauts as “part pilot, part engineer, part scientists, part guinea pig, and part hero.” The term “star voyagers” soon became synonymous with the Mercury 7.

  The astronauts began their new careers at the GS-12 civilian pay grade of $8,300.00 per year, but new found fame brought them a measure of fortune. On behalf of the Mercury 7, NASA Public Affairs Officer, Walt Bonney, contacted Leo DeOrsey, a skilled tax lawyer and personal representative for a handful of movie stars. DeOrsey agreed to represent the astronauts pro bono, and eventually negotiated a three-year, $500,000.00 contract with Life magazine, whereby the popular periodical was granted exclusive rights to the biographies of the astronauts and their wives. In turn, each astronaut was paid $23,809.52 in three annual installments—nearly tripling their yearly pay. Life also agreed to provide life insurance for the men, which otherwise would have been unaffordable, given the high-risk nature of their occupations. As a result of this agreement, Life published more than 70 articles about the Mercury 7 and their families.

  In order to fulfill their roles as media darlings, the former test pilots were schooled on social graces, appropriate attire, posture, and speech-making. Michael Collins, who would be selected in a subsequent astronaut class, likened the training to charm school.

  Wherever the intrepid, clean-cut astronauts traveled, they were greeted as America’s best and brightest. Wernher von Braun, who was supervising the design of the rockets that would send the astronauts into space, was impressed by the Mercury 7: “They are the most wonderful bunch of people you’ve ever seen. No daredevils by a long shot, but serious, sober, dedicated, and balanced individuals…”

  During the Space Race, image often trumped reality. Separated from their wives and children during exhaustive training sessions at Cape Canaveral, and lured by the temptations of nearby Cocoa Beach, a number of the Mercury astronauts behaved in a manner inconsistent with their straight-laced media images. The astronauts’ drinking, womanizing, and high speed races in their sports cars were conveniently excluded from the contemporary annals of space exploration. John Glenn, whose squeaky clean persona excluded him from the shenanigans in Florida, confronted his fellow astronauts about the rumors of their misbehavior. Believing the line between duty and play was clearly demarcated, Allen Shepard told Glenn, in no uncertain terms, to butt out of the private lives of his compatriots.

  While the United States was initiating Project Mercury, the Soviet Union was busy establishing its own manned space program. In March of 1960, cosmonaut training began at the Star Town Facility, located a short distance from Moscow. The cosmonaut candidates were selected from the active roster of military pilots. To maintain ethnic purity, all of the prospective cosmonauts had to be full-blooded Russians. In totalitarian fashion, each cosmonaut was expected to demonstrate absolute loyalty to his country and never question the decisions of his superiors, even during flight.

  From an initial pool of 20 pilots, a dozen cosmonauts were chosen, and became known as the Star Town 12. The inaugural class included Yuri Gagarin, Victor Gorbatko, German Titov, Georgi Situviv, Andrian Nikolayev, Yeugeni Khrunov, Pavel Popovich, Boris Volyanov, Valeri Bykovksy, Aleksei Leonov, Vladimir Kumarov, and Pavel Balyayev.

  The first manned Soviet spacecraft was named Volstok (Russian for “upward flowing”). Designed by engineer Oleg G. Ivanovsky, the spherical capsule was attached to a conical-shaped equipment module, which contained telemetry and communication equipment, oxygen and nitrogen tanks, antennae, and retrorockets. When the spacecraft returned home, the equipment module would be jettisoned before the spacecraft re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, and the capsule would parachute to a ground landing. For safety reasons, during the earliest space flights, the cosmonauts were ordered to parachute from the capsule before it impacted the ground. With deliberate bravado, Soviet authorities disingenuously reported that each cosmonaut remained with his ship until it landed.

  Early on, America’s first astronauts were exposed to one of many potential catastrophes associated with space flight. On M
ay 18, 1959, the Mercury 7 witnessed a test of the Atlas rocket that would launch them into space. One minute after liftoff, the giant rocked exploded in the Cape Canaveral skies. John Glenn likened the blast to a “hydrogen bomb going off right over our heads.” After a brief period of stunned silence, Alan Shepard eased the tension with his morbid sense of humor: “Well, I’m glad they got that out of the way.”

  The second unmanned Mercury mission, launched on November 21, 1960, also ended in failure, when the Redstone rocket lifted only a few inches off the launch pad, and then fell against the supporting tower. As the rocket teetered precariously, the capsule parachutes popped out like a party favor—an embarrassing decoration for what became widely known as the “four-inch flight.”

  On December 19th of that same year, NASA was finally able to launch an unmanned MR-1 capsule into space. After reaching an altitude of 131 miles, the spacecraft safely returned to Earth, splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.

  In preparation for manned space flight, NASA experimented with animals. The first passengers were pigs, who were strapped inside Mercury capsules and dropped from high altitudes to test the spacecraft’s impact resistance. The porkers emerged from the exercise with only mild injuries, which humorously validated the claims of many veteran test pilots—astronauts really were just “Spam in a Can.”

  On May 29, 1959, NASA launched an Army Jupiter missile transporting Able, a rhesus monkey, and Baker, a South American squirrel monkey, into space. Both monkeys wore electrodes to measure their physiological responses to weightlessness and G-forces during the 300-mile-high flight. After splash down, the rocket’s passenger compartment was recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, where both passengers were found tucked away, safe and sound.