by Jay Barbree
NASA managers went in a different direction. They concluded that Shepard was the smartest and most articulate of the bunch, the most talented and capable of making instant decisions in difficult situations, and they wanted him on the first suborbital mission so he could tell the scientists what the grinning chimps they planned to send up first wouldn’t be able to report in words.
Gus Grissom was recognized for his skills in lightning-fast engineering problem solving. Perfect to follow Shepard, and from the beginning not many NASA bosses felt they would ever need to make more than two to four Redstone suborbital flights.
Glenn’s record spoke for itself. He had downed four MiGs in combat, but, more importantly, he had brought back airplanes so badly shot up they were judged not to be flyable by other pilots. Not only had he brought them back and landed them safely, when he climbed from the cockpit the maintenance officers marked these planes as junk, to be cannibalized for parts only.
When NASA decided that two suborbital flights were enough, the charismatic Glenn was assigned the first Mercury orbital mission. Like the other pilots, Deke remained in the dark about his role. He could not know that because of his flying skills, he would be tapped to be the second American in orbit. Specifically, Deke had been listed as the man who would begin the development of orbital flight techniques and, along with Wally Schirra, an equally talented stick-and-rudder man, put the pilot fully back in the control loop.
The key to the selection process was that all seven of these men were solidly proven. They had flown to the edge in testing the nation’s newest and fastest jet planes, and they had survived the hazards of that dangerous occupation. They all would contribute their skills to America’s space effort.
John Glenn was the first to step forward to shake Alan Shepard’s hand. The others surrounded him, offered congratulations, and then quietly left the room. They would be astonished later to realize that nobody had even suggested a round of drinks to toast Shepard.
One of the Navy’s best understood the disappointment and frustration of those who left. Alan in fact felt sorry for them while inside he was dancing a heel-clicking jig all the way home. He felt the hurt of the other guys, but they all knew from the opening bell one would go, six would watch.
So he went home like he’d just finished a countdown and burst through the front door with his Tom Sawyer grin. “Louise! Louise, you home?” he shouted.
She came into the living room, and her three words said it all. “You got it!” She threw her arms around him, and he squeezed her until she almost winced with the pain. “You got the first ride!”
He shouted at her, “Lady, you can’t tell anyone, but you have your arms around the man who’ll be first in space!”
“Who let a Russian in here?” she mocked him.
“Nah. We’ll beat those guys.”
“Keep thinking that way.” She hugged him tighter.
“Thinking, hell. I’m going to push for an early trip. We had a great flight with the Redstone and Mercury capsule last month. They don’t need to fly that damn chimp. If we drop that flight, we’ll kick-start the program and in a couple months I’ll be in space.”
In the weeks to come, the heavy layer of silence about the selections conspired against Shepard. A couple of astronauts went all out to overrule Gilruth’s decision. They wanted Glenn to lead the way, and they emphasized the wild antics for which Shepard was justly infamous. The competitors said Shepard was too lighthearted for the job. And don’t forget Life magazine, they stressed. Alan just didn’t have the “perfect image” the magazine was painting of the astronauts.
You can’t keep that kind of carping quiet too long, and finally Gilruth stepped in. “I want this backbiting stopped right now,” he said by way of warning. “Alan Shepard is my choice. That’s it.”
There’s nothing like final judgment to get rid of bickering. Now that the law had been carved on NASA’s clay tablets, the astronauts joined ranks and gave Shepard their full support. Once again, and long enough in coming, they marched to the beat of a single drummer.
The reality was simple. If the first flight came off as planned, then all seven men would have their crack at looking down at earth far below. They had no fight with one another. Their struggle was to develop their flight hardware to safe and reliable mission capability. Get off the launch pad and come home alive and well.
They were reminded, often, that they could all wake up one morning and hear Russian being spoken from space.
Next stop: Cape Canaveral. Shepard began his campaign to get the chimp grounded and an American in space.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Cape
EARLY IN 1961, THE CAPE, as it was simply called, was a sprawling gateway to the future. It was the most vital and intensely exciting place in the country, a fifteen-thousand-acre sandspit that had been reshaped into a port of blinding searchlights surrounding active launch pads. It was a place where rows of rocket gantries and blockhouses and hangars and office buildings were lined up neatly behind a centuries-old lighthouse, which stood like a defending giant on the Cape’s jutting tip.
The lighthouse served as the focal point for countless jokes pulled on the uninitiated. Many times when one of the rockets would ignite and roar from its launch pad, newcomers and visitors were left staring at the lighthouse wondering why it hadn’t left the ground. The fact that they’d been told the white-and-black tower was the rocket to be launched made the joke even more hilarious. The stunt was pulled so often that the Air Force made a film with the lighthouse painted over an Atlas roaring into space.
The Cape was a place where humor was mixed with the long workdays to keep the assemblage of man’s latest high-tech creations working, and the astronauts led the parade of space age pranksters.
The Mercury Seven met and became friendly with Jim Rathmann, a local Chevrolet dealer and racecar driver who had won the Indianapolis 500 the year before. Jim talked General Motors into lending the astronauts a Corvette of their choice for year knowing full well the astronauts’ year old cars would sell for more than one that was new, and then the fun began. The astronauts competed fiercely to see who could get the most speed and performance out of his Corvette and, after a long day of training, they would set up drag races on the long, straight road that stretched past rockets’ row.
Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and Gordo Cooper had their Corvettes set up for racing, and at first Alan’s performed pretty well. They’d line up and roar down the straight Cape road, sending rabbits and deer and wild hogs running through the palmettos and scrub brush. It was a great way to get rid of the tension that built up during the workday.
One day Gordo Cooper left Alan Shepard in the dust at the starting gate. He burned Alan’s tail good, and from then on Shepard began losing. He wasn’t even in the same race. Alan turned to Gus. “What the hell’s going on?” he demanded.
“You lost, Alan,” Gus grinned.
“I know I lost, damn it, but why?”
“Guess you lost your touch.”
“My touch, my ass,” Alan said. “There’s something wrong with this car.”
“Sure,” Gordo laughed, “and you didn’t eat your Wheaties today.”
“My Wheaties? I’m taking this car in,” he fumed, getting into his ’Vette and heading for Rathmann’s place.
Jim was still in his office, and Shepard demanded to know what was wrong.
“Leave it with me, Alan,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Jim Rathmann was in on Gordo’s gag though, and when Shepard picked up his ’Vette a couple of days later and challenged the guys again, he lost again. The car wasn’t any better. God, it was worse, and Alan took it in again, and Gus and Gordo had Jim do a special paint job.
During World War II fighter pilots painted swastikas or rising sun flags on the side of their cockpits to represent the number of enemy planes they had shot down and, when Shepard’s ’Vette was returned, it had four Volkswagens, a couple of other underpowered cars, a
nd four bicycles painted on its side.
Suddenly, Shepard knew he had been had, and he yelled, “That’s it. I demand a meeting,” and, once he had Jim and Gordo and Gus in the office, the three, laughing like well-fed hyenas, confessed.
“Alan,” Rathmann began, “we changed the rear end in your car.”
“You what?”
“We changed the rear end ratio,” he laughed. “Your car now has more speed.”
More speed? It was immediately clear to Shepard. These laughing dogs had set his ’Vette up so that it would do 150 miles an hour all right, but to do this the car’s pickup was so slow he needed twenty minutes to get up to speed.
“Gotcha!” Gus laughed, slapping him on the back, and Shepard began to shake his head. He had been had, and he had to admit it was a classic. Suddenly Shepard was laughing as hard as they were, and the one-up gamesmanship soon spilled over into their training on the Redstone launch pad.
The Mercury operations boss, Walt Williams, was a serious man. Everything about Project Mercury was innovative, the latest in engineering theory, and this quiet man moved about the rows of rocket gantries and blockhouses and hangars and office buildings with a never-changing expression of determination. A smile was not a frequent visitor to Williams’ face and, this particular day, when the astronauts were working on Shepard’s pad, he suddenly remembered he had to make a luncheon speech in town.
“Damn,” he said. “I don’t have a car, and I’ve gotta be there in twenty minutes.”
“Take my Corvette, Walt,” Alan Shepard graciously offered. “I’ll catch a ride in later with Gus or John.”
“Thanks, Alan.” Walt finally managed a slight smile as he rushed from the launch pad and got into the hot sports car, where he sat fussing with the unfamiliar controls. He finally figured out how to start the car, put it in gear, and roared off.
Shepard grinned. No sooner had Williams turned onto the main road than he phoned the cops. “This is astronaut Alan Shepard,” he shouted. “Some sonofabitch just stole my Corvette. He’s headed for the south gate.”
Williams chugged and jerked Alan’s ’Vette up to the Cape’s south gate and the guards pounced on the stoic man, lifting him from the car and spread-eagling him over the hood.
Alan was already on the phone with NASA security chief Charlie Buckley. “You better get to the south gate right now, Charlie,” he laughed. “They have the boss in handcuffs.”
Despite the glowing press reports about how well things were going with the astronauts and the Mercury operations team, the reality was that conflict was a part of every day at Cape Canaveral. Arduous project schedules and the long wait to get up into space made the astronauts feel stifled, and they were always looking for a way to relieve frustration. On such occasions the lure of space flight dimmed, and conversation among the team turned to their exciting and fast-paced days as test pilots.
The irony of playing second fiddle to a chimpanzee was particularly galling to these highly intelligent and skilled men. NASA had decided to send a chimp into space as a precaution before sending Alan Shepard. Shepard was ready to have a chimp barbecue with the hairy visitor, but NASA insisted the little ape go first. The agency meant well. But all Shepard could think about were Russian boosters rolling to their pads for the first manned space flight.
“The only way for us to go,” Shepard said, “was to work hard and play hard, and that’s what really made the train go. Gus, John, and I dominated the simulators while the others readied themselves for the assignments they’d have on launch day.”
But no matter how hard they worked and played, there were disagreements between the astronauts and NASA officials. First, they weren’t flying. Anyone who believes pilots can easily shunt aside their time in the skies, no matter what else invites them, simply doesn’t understand the nature of a pilot. NASA’s schedule did not include proficiency flights in jets. So the astronauts departed Langley or the Cape on the slightest pretext—to check out the spacecraft or the boosters—because no matter where they went, they flew their own jet.
There were other frictions, too. At the Cape, Alan spent most of his time in a “procedures trainer.” This was a replica of the actual spaceship in which he would be boosted more than a hundred miles into space. It also duplicated the severe semi-supine flight position, with the pilot lying on his back, his legs vertical to the knees and then dropped down so that he was shaped like a squared-off pretzel.
No one liked the trainer. It was like taking a straight-backed chair, placing it on its back, and then “sitting” in it. This is where the astronaut trained to reach all his instruments and controls until he could go through every motion of his scheduled flight with his eyes closed and never miss hitting the right button or lever.
Similarly, “crew quarters in Hangar S were spartan, austere, non-descript, and totally uncomfortable,” Shepard remembered. “Our sleeping quarters could be reached only by going down a long, poorly lit hallway, an unpleasant walk during which we were assailed by hoots, screeches, screams, and howls of a small colony of apes housed out back.”
The astronauts decided the humiliation of stepping aside for a squat, grinning monkey was bad enough, but they didn’t have to live with the howlers and dung flingers. So they all abandoned Hangar S and took up residence at a motel along the beach where they lived like human beings.
It was an enormous psychological break. Alan, Deke, and the others spent hours jogging along the fine, hard sands of Cocoa Beach, drinking in the fresh salt air while formations of pelicans floated overhead. Headquarters and domicile was the Holiday Inn run by Henri Landwirth, who as a young boy had been confined in one of Hitler’s concentration camps. Somehow the Belgian-born youngster survived the horrors of the camp and managed to make it to the United States with a single twenty-dollar bill. He threw himself into becoming an American citizen, settling in Florida, where he became an innkeeper. Before Project Mercury, Henri Landwirth had gained a small amount of fame as host to visiting congressmen, military officers, journalists, and foreign visitors who came to Cape Canaveral.
If the astronauts gave Henri or any of his staff trouble, he would throw them out, his melodious Flemish accent reminding them, “Customers I can always get! Good help is hard to find!”
Henri was one of a kind, and the longer he knew the astronauts, the fonder he became of them and the more he mellowed toward them, muttering under his breath, “Boys will be boys.” He supplied them with a wealth of hospitality and food and provided protected areas for them to relax and unwind.
Gordo Cooper rewarded him one night by having the pool filled with fish so he could sit poolside with fishing pole in hand. The rest of the guests weren’t pleased with having to swim with fish while dodging Gordo’s multi-hook lure.
This fish-in-the-pool stunt held the record as the most outlandish astronaut prank until one night the Mercury-Atlas launch team and the astronauts decided to move their party to Henri’s motel from a boat in the nearby Banana River. The waters on the river grew too rough, and the service on the boat wasn’t all that good, so the launch team and future spacemen picked up the whole damn boat, carried it by hand across busy streets and planted it in Henri’s swimming pool.
They stood there on the boat in the middle of the pool, shouting, “Rum for the crew, wenches for the officers,” until some of the wives dumped them overboard and Henri rolled his eyes in dismay.
It also was a grave error to allow Landwirth and Wally Schirra to get together. Wally was a hopeless practical joker, and he elicited from Henri long-suppressed desires to pull a few pranks of his own. One day Henri and Wally emerged from Wally’s motel room, Landwirth supporting a grievously wounded astronaut with a bloody towel wrapped about his arm. NASA officials and the reporters who covered the astronauts day and night rushed over to see what had happened.
Wally pointed at a large field with palmetto scrub north of the motel. “We went after something moving in there. I don’t know what it is”—he groaned with
pain—“but it sure as hell tore up my arm.” Eyes stared at the thick, bloodied towel, and the group crowded into Wally’s room to see what he had captured and had put in a large box on his bed, covered with a blanket. Wally pointed at the box. “Be careful, dammit. That thing’s dangerous. I think it’s a mongoose.”
“Big mongoose,” Henri confirmed.
Jay Barbree from NBC shook his head. “There are no mongoose in Florida.”
“Maybe it got loose from a zoo,” Wally said with disdain. “Who cares where it came from? Dammit, Jay, look for yourself.”
Barbree was a six-foot-two, 190-pound Georgia farm boy. He’d been around animals most of his life. “Careful!” Wally warned. “Just pull the blanket back an inch or so.”
Barbree bent over the large box and slowly peeled away a portion of blanket. Wham! A huge spring-loaded hairy thing with long teeth burst upward. Six grown men shot through the motel room door. The unafraid of animals farm boy beat them all back to poolside, leaving Wally convulsed on the floor, choking with laughter, hugging the “jack in the box” monster he had lovingly built and then added fur and teeth.
The “mongoose” in the months to come sent some of this nation’s best fighter pilots jumping through windows and hurtling over beds as it burst through the blanket.
Keep a pilot on the ground long enough, and he’ll do just about anything to bust out of his doldrums. The Mercury Seven made close friends with professional comedian Bill Dana, who had developed a routine known as the Cowardly Astronaut. Every chance they had, the astronauts would troop off to where Dana was performing and join him on stage as part of a wild impromptu act. Years later, long after the men of Mercury had retired from NASA, they still played straight men at dinners and parties to the crazy pseudo-Mexican who called himself Jose Jiminez.