Project Mercury (SEASON FINALE) [4K]

[Music] huh [Music] three [Music] 1943 and across the world the second world war rages on [Music] in europe the state of germany is at its territorial peak the past three years were witnessed to some of the quickest and most impressive series of offensive military campaigns in modern history germany her satellites and allies hungary romania and italy have swallowed up or subjugated their european neighbors austria czechoslovakia poland denmark luxembourg belgium the netherlands norway yugoslavia greece albania and france germany's land forces have managed this largely due to the fact that they have fully embraced mechanization fast-moving tanks and motorized infantry air support recon speed it is such a revolutionary shift away from traditional trench warfare that it earns its own name blitzkrieg lightning war but by 1943 the situation approaches a stalemate and begins to turn against the axis powers in the west germany is unable to single-handedly overcome the combined defensive efforts of the royal navy and the raf and despite tactical successes of her submarines in the north atlantic the english channel and the waters of the western world remain largely under british control in the east germany's armies have become locked in a protracted land war with the soviet union at one time advanced units of the wehrmacht were within mere miles of moscow with millions dying in the battle of stalingrad germany is forced for the first time to fight defensively with her armies now unable to overcome this situation germany now seeks to exploit the one advantage it still has technology in the hopes that the development of so-called wonder weapons will one day overcome the logistical nightmare she finds herself in in german occupied norway heavy water plants are utilized as part of an initiative towards making the world's first atomic fission weapon under operation eisbar germany would deploy against england the world's first ever cruise missile a flying drone known as the v1 powered by a pulse jet it is able to deliver an 850 kilogram explosive warhead to civilian areas in the united kingdom finally a separate research program under walter dornberger had throughout the 1930s been developing a series of vertically launched inertially guided ballistic missiles known as the aggregate rockets by 1943 the aggregate 4 design had proven itself capable enough for military use its production model would be called the v2 and it would become the world's first weaponized launch vehicle over 3 000 v2s would be launched against allied targets but several flights would occur outside of military use primarily sponsored by the program's technical director and vehicle designer 31 year old werner von braun one such launch was vehicle mw 18-0-14 which was flown vertically throughout the entire ascent phase to maximize the vehicle's peak altitude it achieved an apogee of 176 kilometers or 109.3 miles above the surface of the earth becoming the first man-made object to reach outer space none of these last ditch efforts turned the tide for nazi germany but the technologies that had been developed are hungrily eyed by the allied intelligence agencies and as the post-war world is carved into capitalist and communist spheres of influence so too is the intelligentsia of the german military-industrial complex many of these projects including the production of v1 and v2 weapons employ slave labor drawn from the massive infrastructure of concentration camps built by nazi germany during the war complicit in the system that committed the 20th century's worst atrocities against humanity the scientists and engineers that had developed these wonder weapons were now at the mercy of the allies who now stood victorious many german scientists and military officials knew they stood a chance for a better life in the west and as the end of the war in europe closed in purposefully sought surrender with british or american units von braun and his team collected blueprints manifests and documents from the program before they could be destroyed by the ss and hid them to be used as bargaining ships for asylum with the allies by september of 1946 operation paperclip was in full swing over 1 200 german officials involved in wonder weapon projects were granted offers they couldn't refuse asylum and work in the united states in exchange for a full pardon of their involvement in world war ii in october the soviet union commences a similar operation in which 2 200 german specialists are rounded up and deported eastward for work inside the iron curtain both the united states and the soviet union would go to great lengths to protect the identities of their respective german personnel in some cases even thwarting efforts to bring certain individuals to justice including operations conducted by mossad the intelligence and special operations agency of a brand new country in the world israel deep inside the continental united states tests are conducted on captured v2s it is a weapon system unlike anything america has ever seen reaching a speed of 3 000 miles an hour the rocket climbs vertically for 60 miles before beginning its descent it's been known to reach england five minutes after launching from the netherlands over 200 miles away [Music] [Music] [Music] von braun and his team are sent to huntsville alabama and between 1946 and 1951 67 captured v2s are fired from the white sands missile range in new mexico as part of a u.s army initiative to develop vehicle mobile long-range field rockets some of these v2s are launched as part of project bumper which tests a new concept developed by jpl called staging the approach of stacking multiple rockets the first stage delivers a certain amount of speed and altitude at which point it runs out of fuel and is purposefully jettisoned the upper stage having been delivered to this point and still fully fueled can ignite its own engine and proceed onward now unencumbered by the mass of the first stage's heavy fuel tanks and large engine staging is the basic principle upon which modern launch vehicles continue to operate the final two v2s launched as part of project bumper utilize a brand new long-range testing facility on the atlantic ocean located in florida the cape canaveral joint long-range proving ground allows the testing of larger longer range missile designs von braun and his team developed the v2 into the pgm11 redstone missile capable of carrying the ford megaton w-39 nuclear warhead to a distance of 325 kilometers in the span of just 10 minutes like the v2 liquid oxygen and an alcohol water mixture are used as fuel but with america's military primarily interested in high-speed aircraft the development of missile technology stagnates von braun ever eager to continue pushing the outside of the envelope publishes several articles in collier's magazine and even helps produce public awareness documentaries about the potential of space flight in conjunction with the walt disney company now here's a model my design for four stage orbital rocket ship compared to the unmanned instrument rocket is quite large but the overall size and weight of the rocket is mainly determined by the 11 tons weight of this top section this weight dictates the amount of fuel and the numbers of motors needed to produce enough power to equalize the gravitational pull of the earth in 1952 the international council of scientific unions one of the world's oldest international bodies announces that the 1957-1958 period of solar maximum the peak of the 11 year long solar cycle would coincide with an international scientific project known as the geophysical year this was an effort designed to promote healthy peacetime competition in the wake of the cold war and simultaneously promote global interest in earth sciences not many in the us and ussr take the geophysical year seriously but when on march 5th 1953 the premier of the soviet union joseph stalin dies the ascension of nikita khrushchev that september opens the door for a slight fall by 1955 the eisenhower administration announces that the united states would participate in the international geophysical year by attempting to launch the world's first earth circling satellite it is like nothing else so much in my mind as the red our room in a big battleship or some other complex thing that really is entirely beyond my comprehension but is still capable of exciting my wonderment by then it was well understood that at least on paper a rocket sufficiently powerful enough could deliver a payload to an altitude above the atmosphere and then push it to such a high speed so as to strike a perfect mathematical balance the forward momentum of the object being so great as to equal the pull of earth's gravity achieving a state of gravitational limbo as the object's horizontal velocity causes it to constantly fall past the earth a state of permanent free fall arcing over the horizon at 7 800 meters per second orbit once the object achieves this velocity in space there is practically no air resistance to slow it down this means achieving orbit at a sufficiently high altitude would allow large enough missiles to deliver vehicles and payloads into a relatively stable state once something enters orbit it can continue to stay there for a significant amount of time without consuming any further propellant this fact leads to a brand new concept in human knowledge the artificial satellite this is exactly the kind of opportunity von braun had been hoping for he gives a passionate pitch to the eisenhower administration to let him and the army ballistic missile team utilize a modified prototype redstone missile called the jupiter sea to launch the world's first satellite american chemist mary sherman morgan had at the direction of von braun developed a new type of rocket fuel called hydine a combination of 60 unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine and 40 diethyl natriamine this fuel when burned with liquid oxygen does not rise to the same temperature as alcohol and therefore does not need to be cut with water this improves the rocket's performance by eight percent and this modification combined with small solid upper stages would be enough to put a small mass into orbit but von braun is flatly rejected by the eisenhower administration eisenhower wants the world's first satellite to be put there by a rocket developed by americans not germans also the jupiter sees unavoidable relation to the redstone field missile and by extension the v2 could be interpreted as a militarization of space there were just too many liabilities the contract instead goes to the navy which develops the vanguard launch vehicle the extra time needed in developing a whole new rocket from the ground up concerns few in the united states the russians are obviously behind in rocket development or so the eisenhower administration had thought in may of 1957 the soviet union tests a new missile of their own the r-7 semyorka it is a massive rocket unlike any of the world has ever witnessed the brainchild of two geniuses vehicle designer sergey korolev and lead engineer valentin glushko together with the soviet team of german scientists these two have made the world's first icbm an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of throwing a nuclear warhead over a distance of 5 000 miles nearly 9 000 kilometers no one in the west is given forewarning when on october 4th 1957 an r7 semyorka launches a 184 pound metal sphere with four antennas called sputnik man stands on the threshold of outer space it's the biggest story of the year possibly the number one story of the century this launching of the russian satellite which brings into the realm of possibility all those wild science fiction stories of interplanetary travel watch it it's fascinating this animation is a graphic portrayal of how a satellite operates this story of the russian satellite burst upon a startled world early in october russia announcing she had shot a man-made moon 560 miles into space where it was circling the earth at the dizzy speed of 18 000 miles per hour it set its familiar beef beep back to earth was tracked by radio and by sight as it hurtled across the heavens soviet union had beaten the united states in the international geophysical years earth satellite project literally overnight the worldwide perception of power and technology shifts in russia's favor for the first time in the cold war many in the u.s see it as an all-out crisis anyone can tune into sputnik's beeping as it passes over the continental united states and people to this day still claim to have seen it with their own eyes sputnik's relatively tiny 58 centimeter diameter makes this highly improbable what most people actually observe is the depleted core stage of the r7 as it orbits alongside the small satellite it is nearly 50 times bigger than the tiny metal ball less than a month later on november 3rd a second soviet satellite sputnik 2 places the first living object in orbit a stray mongrel from the streets of moscow named laika that december the navy's vanguard launch vehicle was ready and america's official response to sputnik had been cleared for liftoff [Music] the press called it kaputnik it had been a double slap in the face for the eisenhower administration and the united states looked undeniably inept in the field of burgeoning rocket technology von braun who had already made his doubts clear about the vanguard hardware promises eisenhower that with the green light he can put an american satellite into orbit within 60 days a desperate eisenhower finally gets the go-ahead and by february of 1958 von braun places a jpl design satellite dubbed explorer 1 atop a jupiter c ballistic missile this small satellite is packed with four science experiments including instruments to measure micro meteorite impacts acoustic detectors temperature sensors and an omnidirectional geiger molar tube to measure proton and electron radiation this suite of scientific instrumentation is put together by dr james van allen of the university of iowa february 1st 1958 explorer 1 takes off [Music] some three minutes later explorer is in orbit broadcasting to the world it's coded scientific data this close-up of the united states edition of sputnik was made at a press conference with leaders of the scientific teams dr verna von braun dr james van allen and dr william pickering a three-way collaboration between private industry academic science and the military cosmic ray intensity meteor impact solar radiation these are the dry facts that will help carry a man ever father into the age of space [Music] explorer one becomes america's first satellite in orbit its scientific instruments shed light on the existence of localized bands of radiation existing at high orbit altitudes which soon become named the van allen belts the international geophysical year the public catalyst for which all of this was officially pursued quickly becomes overshadowed and forgotten in the face of what soon becomes known as the space race as both countries bolster their efforts to continue missile development and with the launch of a dog aboard sputnik 2 it was clear to many in the eisenhower administration that human space flight was russia's next obvious goal the director of the national advisory committee for aeronautics hugh dryden makes the case for an american national research program to develop space technology stating it is of great urgency and importance to our country both from consideration of our prestige as a nation as well as military necessity that this challenge of sputnik be met by an energetic program of research and development for the conquest of space [Music] the united states house of representatives creates a select committee on astronautics and space exploration which soon drafts what will become the national aeronautics and space act of 1958. signed into law by president eisenhower this federal statute abolishes the naca merging its responsibilities into a brand new much larger and more centralized agency the national aeronautics and space administration nasa is born this new member of the executive branch is charged with several objectives but the first three are the most important one the expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space two the improvement of the usefulness performance speed safety and efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles three the development and operation of said vehicles capable of carrying instruments equipment supplies and living organisms through space nasa's holistic purpose is to bring the various isolated aeronautical development programs scattered across the u.s together under a single federal umbrella in order to avoid the unnecessary duplication or competition of american effort facilities and equipment it is one of the largest centralizations of american government in the 1950s setting policy and direction for this new agency would be the national aeronautics and space council a collection of individuals from the highest echelons of government and aerospace research chaired by the president himself other members would include the secretaries of state and defense the chairman of the atomic energy commission and the newly appointed administrator of nasa thomas keith glennon glennon presides over an organization that had absorbed the earlier naca its 8 000 employees an annual budget of 100 million dollars nearly 880 million in today's money and three major laboratories the langley aeronautical lab now the langley research center located on the chesapeake bay in hampton virginia the ames research center at moffett federal airfield in what is now silicon valley and finally the lewis flight research center located in brook park ohio over the next two years glennon would oversee the absorption of further laboratories and research centers by 1960 nasa would assume responsibility of several programs that started as army navy air force or dod projects this includes such offices as darpa and jpl the jet propulsion laboratory nasa quickly balloons into a big tent agency assuming responsibility for and sharing information between the various existing laboratories nationwide as well as constructing new ones such as the goddard space flight center in greenbelt maryland the most pressing and imminent issue that now faces this new agency is manned space flight nasa's first priority put a man into space before the soviet union to this end glennon organizes a cabal of senior engineers an aggregate of talent and knowledge pulled from the various laboratories across the country this collection of 45 are known as the space task group it is up to them to decide precisely how america will launch the world's first astronaut the leader of the space test group is robert gilruth who before nasa was working on hypersonic missiles at the naca other notable members include chris kraft and glenn lunny [Music] although not part of the original 45 more notable members would join in the next two years the most famous being a 27 year old gene krantz notably absent from this group werner von braun i reported langley research center i was never interviewed for the job i sat in basically a bullpen for about two weeks and a gentleman comes up taps me in the shoulder and says i'm chris craft you're working for me now i want you to go down to the cape write a countdown write submission rules and when you're through give me a call and we'll launch i could put the piece together i knew there had to be a spacecraft that's over hang around you go down the launch pad there's a there's a booster down there i knew a bit about range safety from holloman where we were so i could go over and find range safe so there's a question of pulling these people together the most influential member of this group is mechanical engineer max faget his research leads him to the work of one harry julian allen who in 1952 was testing various types of shapes for warheads at hypersonic flight his tests led to the formulation of the blunt body principle of the three possible methods of returning to earth from space those being ballistic skip and glide he came to the conclusion that a blunt non-lifting high drag projectile-like vehicle was both the simplest to design and most reliable to control this radical departure from the streamlined aircraft approach such as the x-15 is based on the fact that a blunt body would produce an extremely large disturbance in the atmosphere known as a bow shock which could carry away up to 90 percent of the friction heat generated by the hypersonic speed while deceleration g forces would be high on paper the ballistic vehicle was a practical man-carrying machine all that would be required was to develop a material that could somehow protect the interior of the craft from the remaining 10 percent of entry heat instead of opting for a heat sink fashe and the designers choose an ablative heat shield layers of fiberglass cloth and phenolic resin that would physically burn away at a controlled rate exchanging mass for heat and transferring said heat away from the vehicle the blunt shape would require the least amount of testing since it was already physically represented by the nuclear warheads which the rockets have already been designed to carry by january 1959 america's first spacecraft had taken shape and the contract was awarded to the mcdonnell aircraft corporation to build these bold new machines that would grant humans access to the great beyond also the centralized campaign of putting a man in space now had an official name one that would represent the speed skill and cunning required to make it happen it would be named after the roman god of travelers and luck project mercury but now came the decision of who who among the american people would be chosen to fly as our first ambassadors to space it would have to be a group of people pulled from an industry that hardened them to danger and high stress situations they would need to be able to make quick and clear judgments under physical duress they would need to be able to perform familiar tasks in an unfamiliar environment in a vehicle that may be spinning upside down and tumbling stock car drivers acrobats and daredevils are initially considered for the job but at the insistence of the eisenhower administration a more disciplined and educated pool of talent is chosen military test pilots this decision would have a huge effect on the coming development of not only the mercury capsule but all future american manned spacecraft it would also mean that nasa would be recruiting from the military specifically educated pilots familiarized with high-speed jet aircraft an occupation which at the time is dominated entirely by men 508 volunteers are approved for initial screenings through the early months of 1959 this group is whittled down to just 32 who make it to physical trials the physical evaluation program is carried out for nasa by the lovelace clinic in albuquerque new mexico each candidate spends seven and a half days and three evenings at the facility where they are subjected to the most rigorous physical examinations in the history of modern medicine the vision testing alone includes refraction visual fields extraocular muscle balance red lens tests tonometry depth perception slit lamp testing dark adaptation dynamic visual acuity and color perception their hearing is also subjected to a battery of tests and beyond that electrocardiograms ballistocardiograms tilt table tests lung capacity tests neurological examinations and even a proctosigmoidoscopy each candidate gives blood stool and semen and is measured for blood count hematology smear hemoglobin hematocrit sedimentation rate fasting blood sugar cholesterol blood grouping sodium potassium carbon dioxide chloride urea clearance in blood and urine blood urine nitrogen protein-bound iodine protein electrophoresis blood volume total body water ketosteroids throat cultures and sperm count the tests were exhausting and in retrospect largely useless and overthought nonetheless by using the entire group's average as a baseline out of 32 finalists only seven emerge a few months later a second privately funded medical study performed the same battery of tests on a group of female pilots recruited through a pilot's organization known as the 99s in the end 13 women passed the same physical examinations that the lovelace foundation had developed for the astronaut selection process the experiment was a success though these women are physically capable of becoming astronauts nasa already has their pilots [Music] seven men a contingent of mature americans average in build and visage family men all college educated as engineers possessing excellent health and professionally committed to flying advanced aircraft though short of average in height they were all above average in competitiveness and seriousness of purpose they were nasa's first astronaut group when you have a brand strange new machine then you go to the test pilots that's what they were trying to do and that's what they had been doing now of course naca had some test pilots but they were a little bit older none of them i don't think were in a position where they probably could have competed with the varied background of test flying which most most of us had today we are introducing to you and to the world these seven men who have been selected to begin training for orbital space flight it's my pleasure to introduce to you and i consider it a very real honor gentlemen malcolm s carpenter scott carpenter leroy g cooper gordon cooper known as gordo john h glenn john glenn virgil i grissom virgil grissom known as gus walter m shira walter sherrah known as wally allen b shepherd allen b shepherd known as al donald k donald kent slayton known as deacon these ladies and gentlemen are the nation's mercury astronauts [Music] while at least theoretically the tests and examinations they underwent declared them prepared for space flight nothing could prepare these seven men for the torrent of celebrity in which they will find themselves now submerged unlike the soviet union's effort the united states announces her plans to the world and despite doing little more than having been selected to one day fly into space the mercury seven are instantly dubbed heroes by the american media confidence is at an all-time high but yet all of a sudden realizing that here was competition there were seven guys competing for the first job or whatever that turned out to be seven guys going for that one job so on the one hand there was a sense of friendliness and maybe even some support but on the other hand hey i hope the rest of you guys are happy because i'm going to make the first flight certainly some of the tests we had out there were the most trying and it's it's rather difficult to pick one because if you figure how many openings there are on the human body and how far you can go in any one of them you gave it away now you had you answered which one would be the toughest for you [Music] and it was it was the inspiration was a really a challenge to sit down and say we will put this together and we're going to win this battle for the high ground and that's what my mission became amongst the sun-kissed beaches of florida a cultural dichotomy emerges being chosen is nasa's official launch site into space the cape canaveral joint long-range proving ground sees an influx of talent in the form of american aeronautical technicians private contractors german rocket engineers titusville florida becomes a boom town and the bars and hotels which regularly host tanned beach goers and young adults also begin to see the traffic of pasty high strung missile men and exhausted space test group controllers nasa now just needs to test the hardware to a point where it has demonstrated an acceptable level of safety and reliability craft watered each one of us he trusted each one of us to basically accomplish our role during the course of the mission but he wasn't looking for clothes he wanted to look for people who were not only capable of leadership but basically addressing the challenge every step forward as he moved into space i remember it was the cold war there was the competition because obviously their objectives their capabilities for orbital play were greater than ours at that particular point get me faster we want to go basically uh witnessed firsthand the impact upon the young people that were in the mission control team i had lost a couple pilots in my squadron over in korea craft could work like this he was familiar with accidents and it was really a question of carrying this young group of people through [Music] very traumatic that's where we were [Music] everybody knows a little place oh know the astronauts finally start familiarizing themselves with the new mercury capsule the spacecraft that will one day be carrying them into orbit and they do not like what they see so far the designers are largely leaving pilot input and control out of the picture they are moving the spacecraft's design towards a more automated approach america's mercury astronauts strongly protest this direction knowing it would make them little more than spam in a can simply along for the ride as a collective group they begin to successfully lobby nasa management and contractors surrendering some of the capsule's automation in favor of a more human-oriented layout with the astronaut pilot able to take manual control of the spacecraft and have access to all the capsules fuel systems a big point of contention comes when the astronauts ask for a window through which to look out a glass window and the added structure required to support it would add both weight to the final design and time in verifying that the capsule was ready to fly while it does delay the program the astronauts ultimately get their wish threatening to go public if their voices aren't heard november 21st 1960 mercury redstone won an unmanned test flight bringing together all the newly developed hardware aspects of the fledgling manned program the new mercury capsule mated to the new redstone rocket both flying together into space [Music] it was called the 4-inch flight the failure of ground cables to separate in the correct sequence caused an erroneous electrical signal to initiate the escape tower to fire something which isn't supposed to happen until the rocket has depleted all of its propellant for the upcoming manned spaceflights the mercury capsule sits underneath a protruding spike known as the launch escape tower this is essentially a powerful solid rocket booster with a high thrust to weight ratio able to overcome that of the launch vehicle during the early phases of powered flight the launch escape tower is able to physically overcome the thrust of the booster and pull the capsule away from the rocket during the period of time in which it is still traversing earth's atmosphere and more susceptible to failure it is an ejection seat for the entire spacecraft an option of last resort the tower automatically ejects when the onboard computer senses that the rocket is out of fuel this flight represents an embarrassing failure of the best laid plans one month later a second attempt mercury redstone 1a is flawless there is considerable pressure to launch the first astronaut into space but also considerable worry about the standards of the redstone launch vehicle which had demonstrated considerable reliability and control issues nasa operating cautiously and conservatively decided that the next flight mercury redstone 2 would be manned but not by a human a three and a half year old cameroon chimpanzee named ham will be flying into space aboard this mercury capsule it is a controversial decision to say the least many wonder why send humans into space at all if they are not to be first some lampoon the astronauts as having little more importance than the chimps themselves [Music] ham's capsule sees the implementation of several systems not flown previously including a pneumatic landing bag to be deployed underneath the heat shield after re-entry live retro-rockets and voice communication during the launch the redstone rocket drifts off course by a single degree this high flight angle causes ham's reentry to be much steeper hamm sustains not 11.5 gs of deceleration but nearly 15. the redstone can lob the mercury capsule well into space but not even closely into orbit the sub-orbital trajectory is much like the arc of a mortar shell or cannonball up and down with a peak altitude and around 6 minutes of weightlessness ham splashes down 60 miles away from the nearest recovery ship and by the time rescue helicopters arrive the spacecraft is already on its side taking on water and submerging the beryllium heat shield had bounced hard against the capsule and punctured two holes in the titanium pressure bulkhead when the helicopter crew finally latched onto the capsule it was estimated that it had taken on nearly 800 pounds of water ham is tired scared and dehydrated but overall in good shape he readily eats an apple and half an orange after the flight all eyes are now on nasa as it is clear that the next flight to leave cape canaveral will carry a human but there is still significant worry and apprehension no one on the ground wants to give the final go january 20th 1961 democrat john fitzgerald kennedy is inaugurated the 35th president of the united states of america he vows to aggressively continue and expand america's exploration of the new frontier of space unlike eisenhower the kennedy administration does not think twice about werner von braun's background in connection with the third reich with kennedy in office von braun can now expect increased political support from above the world is very different now for man holds in his mortal hands unleashed by science the power to abolish all forms of human the life has been passed to a new generation of americans born in this century tempered by war disciplined by a heart and bitter peace proud of our ancient heritage together let us explore the stars conquer the deserts eradicate disease tap the ocean depth and encourage the arts and commerce the energy the faith the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve and the glow from that fire can truly light the world and so my fellow americans ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can do for your country the decision to redesign the spacecraft to be more user-friendly and less automated the failure of mercury redstone one the decision to send a chimpanzee into space on mercury redstone 2 and the final apprehension for mercury redstone 3. these are all things that may have served a critical role in making the end product safer and more reliable but they also have the effect of delaying the program again and again if any one of these events had turned out differently it may very well have been possible that the united states would send the first human into space but as fate would have it april 12 1961 would not be a victory for the united states but yet another stunning and embarrassing defeat fighter pilot and cosmonaut yuri gagarin is blasted into space aboard a modified r-7 in a spacecraft known as vostok man had his first great success in space when the russians pushed a man across the threshold he was yuri gagarin the astronaut the russians lionized as the first to orbit the earth it was the propaganda coup of the year the space pilot whom the russians have deified as the man of the century arrives at the airport outside of moscow for his first public appearance questions that have arisen in the west about the validity of his flight have no place here today as the crowds go wild over the first band to conquer space major gagarin's initial function the vostok spacecraft is inferior to the mercury capsule it is primitive heavy and uncontrolled the cosmonaut inside is largely just along for the ride the spherical capsule means the spacecraft tumbles during the fiery descent to earth it couldn't even land safely the occupant inside has to eject after re-entry and parachute to the ground but it was good enough good enough to work good enough to be first [Music] not only is yuri gagarin first into space the r7 rocket is sufficiently powerful enough to blast the vostok capsule into orbit as well something the redstone cannot do for the mercury capsule the soviet union benefits from the prodigal talent of a few key individuals working within its space program none more so than sergey korolev his knowledge and practical ability allows the soviet union to develop launch vehicle engines that are leaps and bounds ahead of those of the united states it is once again made clear that the soviet union would be able to maintain its lead over the us for the foreseeable future [Music] it had been an embarrassment to say the least as the united states by now had been gearing up for manned space flight quite publicly for a long time [Music] just a week prior to the first manned american launch nasa conducts another unmanned test of the new atlas booster which may one day in the future propel mercury capsules into orbit [Music] [Music] [Music] mercury redstone 3 the first american manned space flight would have to fly in the shroud of yet another failure nobody knows who nasa has chosen at this point to be the first american to fly into space the launch is scheduled for may 2nd 1961. at midnight the weather around the cave worsened lightning and rain plagues the cape all morning and by 7 25 when the clouds give no sign of clearing the launch is cancelled [Music] the astronaut for the first manned american space mission frustratedly walks out of the hangar and starts shimmying out of his spacesuit a lurking reporter spots him and breaks the story it's al shepard the secret is now out hard charging alan b shepard jr was number one in line for the first u.s flight into space his mission mercury redstone 3 is delayed three days everyone holds their breath and waits for the weather to improve the leak of al shepard as the prime pilot for mr3 has the effect of drawing even more press coverage and national attention to an event which already captivates the nation on may 5th 1961 the weather report comes in the skies will be clear the mission is a go the redstone rocket sitting on the pad will blast shepard's two-ton capsule nicknamed freedom 7 on a 15-minute foray into space a manned recreation of the flight undertaken by ham the chimpanzee just a month prior like ham al shepard will experience upwards of a crushing 11 g's on the steep downward reentry into earth's atmosphere his short flight will be full of activity the moment the capsule separates from the redstone booster shepard will attempt to take manual control he will test the spacecraft's ability to maneuver to various arbitrary attitudes with the hydrogen peroxide reaction control system jets and then position it for retro fire strapped to the bottom of the heat shield is a small package containing three ripple firing solid rockets the package as a whole produces 526 kilograms of thrust for a sustained 10 seconds it means little on this flight but for the upcoming orbital flights this retro pack is essential in slowing the spacecraft down just enough to dip it into the atmosphere and initiate re-entry [Music] the mercury capsule itself has no primary engines it relies entirely on this retro pack which is jettisoned prior to re-entry to facilitate retro fire the retro pack imparts a delta v of just 560 kilometers per hour next to nothing in the extreme speeds of space flight alan's capsule freedom 7 is the last of the mercury capsules without a forward-facing pilot's window he will only be able to look outside through a small porthole on his side and through an onboard periscope but on this short 15-minute flight there won't be much looking at all shepard enters the spacecraft at 5 15 am he has consumed three cups of coffee a glass of orange juice and a meal of steak and eggs with toast just 15 minutes prior to the scheduled launch time at 705 the launch is delayed for an hour to let residual cloud cover clear and to fix a power supply unit an hour later the count resumes and then pauses yet again as another hold is called to reboot a computer at the goddard space flight center all of these delays result in shepard lying on his back inside the capsule for nearly five hours al is getting frustrated what's worse he severely needs to urinate mercury stations standby for status report at t-minus five seven seven raiding it on clear capcom over to chase [Music] [Music] this triggers a huge argument in the blockhouse it could short out medical electrodes on his body shepard never one to lose command of the situation simply orders the engineers to turn the power off they comply and shepard empties his bladder into the suit 62 news men from twelve foreign countries are present some face about some said ramrod straight staring at the launching pad where the redstone sits a squawk box just announced t-minus six minutes and counting this is charles von friend at the press out in the site east southeast of cape canaveral three marine corps helicopters are going into the air along with half a dozen shore based navy and airport tracking planes that are up there the planes will hold in on the astronaut with the help of radar and the spacecraft's all-radio transmitter and hope the primary recovery helicopter will group in to pick up the capital and that primary helicopter number 44 are only two persons marine pilot flight lieutenant wayne jones of lions kansas and co-pilot george cox of houston florida cox ended in the recovery of the mr2 capsule in january got himself safely aboard a navy two doctors ship trained by the space administration will begin debriefing we'll describe our recovery for you as it happens with this rubber glass towards the carrier linking just past 9 30 in the morning the countdown gets below 5 minutes after all this effort all this time america was finally ready to go most people involved are rightfully scared naturally distrustful of the hardware they had toiled so long to develop none are more excited or ready to fly than alan shepard [Music] [Applause] after they are uh is [Music] [Music] is [Music] and the turnaround has started [Music] assuming [Music] what a beautiful view what a beautiful view over florida three to four tenths near the eastern coast obscures up through hatteras you can see okeechobee uh joint retro [Music] very smoothly okay [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay [Music] okay is [Music] um is [Music] the entire flight lasts 15 minutes and 22 seconds shepard is weightless for a third of that time though there is no room to float inside the tight mercury capsule it is a blur of noise and motion an event long anticipated that is over far too soon the flight of freedom 7 is a complete success shepard is instantly celebrated as a national hero and awarded the medal of freedom by president kennedy kennedy drops the medal during the ceremony but is quick to save the moment with a witty quip the members of the house and senate space committee who are with us today and uh this decoration which has gone from the ground up here [Applause] [Music] on may 25th just a couple weeks after shepard's flight kennedy addresses a joint special session of congress kennedy wants to decisively beat the russians in the field of manned space flight but he knows that identifying a short-term goal such as a space station would likely cause america to lose seeing as the russians were already ahead what he needs now is to lay out an objective so bold so ambitious it would take either country a decade or more to achieve a period of time in which kennedy is confident the united states can catch up to and surpass the soviet union is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny the dramatic achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us all as did the sputnik in 1957 the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere who are attempting to make a determination of which road they should take now it is time to take longer strides time for a great new american enterprise time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth i therefore ask the congress above and beyond the increases i have earlier requested for space activities to provide the funds which are needed to meet the following national goals first i believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth no single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish with a total of just 15 minutes of manned space flight experience kennedy pledges the resources of nasa and the united states towards landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth overnight werner von braun's wildest dreams come true apollo is greenlit and approved by kennedy and the congress america is going to the moon but before anyone is ready to make giant leaps there are dozens of small steps that still need to be taken including proving that freedom 7 was no fluke july 21st 1961 gus grissom aboard his mercury capsule liberty bell 7 a second sub-orbital hop into space on the redstone the clock is operating okay it's a nice ride up to now roger okay the fuel is go about one and a quarter g's cabinet pressure is just coming off the peg the oxygen is go with 26 amps roger pitch a trajectory is good the roger looks good here hey everything is good cannon fishes holdings okay 10 minutes and we got four g's fuel is go i feel a hand controller move just a hair there get a pressure's holding oxygen is go at 25 amps grissom's capsule is the first with a forward-facing window he is blasted to a height of 102 nautical miles and lands downrange in the atlantic 15 minutes and 30 seconds after launch the capsule splashes down in the ocean grissom removes his oxygen hose and opens his visor liberty bell seven is rolling badly in the swells grissom instructs the helicopter pilots to wait five minutes before coming to pick him up as he begins recording his cockpit panel data with a grease pencil he removes the pin from the hatch cover detonator and leans back minding his own business as he rests and waits for the helicopters to retrieve the capsule all of a sudden there's an explosion the explosive bolts surrounding the hatch cover detonate when it flies off striking the water one and a half meters away and skipping over the waves a panicked grissom climbs out and swims away from the spacecraft the helicopter pilot knows that grissom's suit can float so he ignores grissom and attempts to recover liberty bell 7 which is rapidly taking on water the sikorsky h-34 helicopter struggles to lift the capsule which at this point is completely saturated the pilot raises the collective to maximum and fights against gravity suddenly a warning light illuminates inside the helicopter metal chips are being detected in the oil sump the engine is being pushed to the breaking point simultaneously in the water gus grissom realizes he isn't riding as high as he was five minutes ago he realized then that he forgot to secure his suit inlet valve his spacesuit is taking on water and fast [Music] the entire event is being televised to mercury control flight controllers stare helplessly as they watch gus start to flounder in the waves as the helicopter struggles with the capsule things are coming to a head gus is now barely above water the pilot of the first helicopter james lewis abandons the attempt to recover the spacecraft liberty bell 7 sinks in 5.1 kilometers or 3.2 miles of water lewis flies away realizing the implication of engine failure finally a second helicopter moves in for gus piloted by george cox gus had been saved but liberty bell 7 was lost substantial controversy ensued as grissom reported that the hatch had blown without his authorization an independent technical review raises doubts over this theory but the most widely accepted explanation is that the hatch's external release lanyard which was held in place by only one screw came loose at splashdown this is supported by further testing which showed that the kickback from the manual trigger left a visible bruise something which grissom did not have either way liberty bell 7 was a close call but succeeded in its primary goal to prove the mercury capsule was robust and could work reliably the capsule would actually be recovered on july 20th 1999 after 38 years on the sea floor a little banged up but amazingly no worse for wear it currently rests at the cosmosphere a space museum in hutchinson kansas committed to doing the job well to doing it safely they value the lives of the astronauts and you have to put yourself in the position of being responsible for lives every day and that's not easily done you can't walk away from that with two sub-orbital missions under their belt it's time for nasa to raise the stakes by this point the soviet union had orbited two men in order for the mercury capsule to reach orbit it would have to go more than three times faster to accomplish this nasa needs a lot more rocket the answer upgrade the mercury capsules launch vehicle from the redstone army field missile to the convair sm-65 atlas icbm america's answer to the r seven semyorka the atlas launch vehicle is unique in several ways the nature of its construction compensates for the weaknesses that are unique to american rockets in the early 1960s the primary weakness when contrasted with soviet missiles are rocket engines american liquid rocket motor ignition reliability is less than 50 percent as such the atlas is designed in such a way that all of its engines are ignited on the ground no engines have to be lit in flight it accomplishes this with an unprecedented stage and a half concept at launch the atlas sports an impressive three live engines providing a maximum thrust to weight ratio when the vehicle is at its heaviest a couple of minutes into flight once the vehicle is in space and having depleted a lion's share of its fuel and mass the outer two engines called the booster engines are jettisoned from the vehicle via a connected shroud this event is known as biko or booster engine cutoff the center engine called the sustainer continues burning until the entire rocket and its payload is in low earth orbit also unique to the atlas is its structure there is no interior skeleton or physical support beams the rocket utilizes a style of propellant storage called a balloon tank it is made of very thin stainless steel less than a millimeter thick just after construction the tanks are inflated with nitrogen to give them their shape and strength balloon tanks must always remain pressurized any appreciable drop in internal pressure will result in structural failure it is the internal pressure which makes the tanks rigid and strong much like a soda can before it has been opened this has the advantage of giving the atlas an incredibly light dry weight the rocket itself weighs very little compared to its fuel which helps performance and efficiency innovative and sometimes dangerous solutions such as these were the necessary workarounds required to maintain the competitive edge in the space flight arena november 29th 1961 decides yet again to send a chimpanzee first enos the chimp is first to ride a mercury capsule into orbit enos makes two orbits and is recovered in the atlantic the issues encountered are minor temperature control problems and stuck thrusters things which could be addressed with the presence of a human astronaut [Music] the atlas rocket has a long history of flight test failures nonetheless it is the only means by which the mercury capsule can enter earth orbit the next manned flight mercury atlas 6 is given to who is perceived as the strongest and most resilient of the seven astronauts former marine john glenn glenn's mission friendship seven will be a gargantuan leap compared to the sub-orbital hops of shepard and grissom glenn will be traveling over the earth's surface at 17 500 miles an hour nearly eight kilometers a second nobody on the ground knows how the human body will respond to prolonged periods of zero g a global myriad of tracking stations called the manned space flight network will be supporting glenn's flight as his spacecraft drifts between cells of coverage located in goldstone california bermuda the canary islands nigeria several ships in the indian ocean wilmara australia ships in the pacific ocean and hawaii low earth orbit missions are only visible to a small fraction of the earth's surface at one time and due to their extreme speed a large number of tracking stations spread all over the world is necessary just to provide communication for a fraction of the spacecraft's total orbit after 10 postponements and 82 days of delays friendship 7 enters the terminal phase of its countdown in february of 1962. further delays occur when a faulty component in the rocket's guidance system is discovered and when the pad crew breaks a bolt in the spacecraft hatch and has to scurry off to get a new one every second of glenn's flight has been calculated and recalculated on the ground with the day's most advanced digital computers in 1962 computers and electronics in general are widely distrusted and unreliable as such human engineers and mathematicians crunch the numbers themselves ensuring that the computers are spitting out the right results the launch window the rotation of the earth under the orbit the movement of the spacecraft as a function of speed and altitude the landing site where to send the recovery forces the effect of atmospheric drag as a function of spacecraft weight every possible factor and alternative are predicted and planned ahead of time in the days leading up to the launch when a possible discrepancy is found in the orbital calculations glenn tells nasa engineers to quote get the girl to check the numbers glenn is referring to human computer katherine johnson whose expertise and talent in this area is known to many in project mercury february 20th 1962 with millions watching on live tv john glenn prepares to ride the atlas into orbit for the first time the moment when the final atlas engine will shut down when friendship 7 should separate from the booster rocket and begin orbital plane i wanted to say something like a bona voyage buddy have a good time and also enlist the aid of our maker and protect him ten nine eight seven six five four three two one is [Music] glenn around the world in 90 minutes trajectory aok includes mercury control history perhaps being written at this moment here at cape canaveral as project mercury reaches a climax with its launching operation and now one minute out about 10 miles left speed beginning to pick up another thousands of miles [Music] go [Music] [Music] [Music] 0g and i feel fine he says the view is tremendous all roger seven you have a go at least seven orbits oh that view is tremendous clear back toward cape canaveral and says it's a beautiful sight especially to have behind him since that could have given us so much trouble but did not here at the cape this morning astronaut john glenn now reports his spacecraft has turned around the blunt heat shield is facing the direction of flight and is tilted up about 34 degrees above horizontal this is the desired pre-planned orbital attitude after the altitude 138 nautical miles roger apogee altitude 138. the critical phase passed flight director chris craft observing every facet of this operation the spacecraft now passing beyond the first major time of decision the friendship seven spacecraft that's pilot john glenn is now in contact with bermuda this is mercury control the mercury capsule separates and glenn begins coasting radar stations in bermuda calculate his trajectory and confirm friendship seven has made orbit how many orbits glenn can make is not planned in advance the radar data from bermuda indicates that the trajectory would be healthy for at least seven orbits but the mileage of the spacecraft had not yet been proven does not know precisely how the spacecraft will age over time thus the mission will progress one orbit at a time each night pass providing an opportunity to review data in the spacecraft's status determining whether or not the mission should continue this is friendship seven have beautiful view of the african coast both in the scope and out the window out the window is by far the best view glenn calmly operates and tests the spacecraft making minor pitch and yaw adjustments he notices that the onboard attitude indicators disagree with what he observes to be the true spacecraft attitude but any minor disappointment in the hardware is quickly overshadowed by the view glenn would enjoy as he passes over the african coastline a brilliant blue there i have the mainland in sight at present time coming up on the scope and have canaries in sight out through the window and pick them up on the still on ascs i can see a dust storms uh down there blowing across the desert a lot of dust is difficult to see the ground in some areas or oceans continents nations at a glance glenn is the first american to enjoy the grandeur of earth from orbit he watches his first sunset in space as friendship seven coasts on over the indian ocean [Music] he starts taking pictures with a minolta high matic 35 millimeter film camera that he purchased from a drugstore prior to the flight having convinced nasa to let him take the camera into had a space sunset and i can see the light way out almost up to the northern horizon uh the sunset was beautiful it went down very rapidly i still have a brilliant blue band uh clear across the horizon almost covering my whole window uh the redness of the sunset i can still see through some of the clouds way over to the left of my course over uh the sky above is absolutely black completely black i can see stars though up above i do not have any of the constellations identified as yet over as day breaks over canton island in the pacific glenn saw that the spacecraft is surrounded by thousands of brilliant lights his first impression was that the spacecraft is tumbling or that perhaps he was looking into a star field but a quick hard look at the horizon showed that friendship 7 was stable as friendship 7 sped over the pacific into brighter sunlight these fireflies disappear that was sure a short day now that was about the shortest day i've ever run into [Applause] that are brilliantly lit up like they're luminescent i never saw anything like it they're around the little they're coming by the capsule uh and they look like little stars a whole shower of them coming by they swirl around the capsule and go in front of the window and they're all brilliantly lighted uh they've probably averaged maybe uh seven or eight feet apart but i can see them all down below me also uh they do they do have a different motion though for me uh because they swirl around the capsule and then depart back the way that i am looking are you receiving over there are literally thousands of them uh this is friendship seven uh am i in contact with anyone over this has been going on since about one or plus one five over just after i remarked about the sunset i looked back up and looked out the window and uh all of those swirl particles were going by over uh flight capacity no one on the ground has any idea what they could be [Music] while the initial impression was that they did not seem to be originating from the spacecraft a quick bang on the capsule wall produced more of these so-called fireflies it must therefore have been ice crystals forming from water vapor that was venting from onboard systems glenn starts to notice a developing problem a sticky rcs valve exactly the kind of issue that had plagued enos's flight aboard ma5 glenn immediately starts to troubleshoot the situation attempting to prove once and for all that the flexibility of man can augment the reliability of machine learning i'm going on fly by wire so i can control more accurately it just started as i got to wymas and appears to be uh it pissed off in yaw uh to the right at about one degree per second it will go over to an attitude of about 20 degrees and hold at that uh and when it hits about a 20 degree point it then goes into orientation mode and comes back to zero and it was cycling back and forth in that uh mode i am on fly by wire now and controlling manually over the onboard automatic stabilization and control system is allowing the spacecraft to drift a degree and a half per second to the right this drift initiates a signal in the computer system for an impulse to yaw left but the rcs control system does not oblige this signal glenn switches to manual fly-by-wire and places friendship 7 back in the correct attitude then switching between the control modes he determines how to maintain the correct position while incurring the least cost in onboard fuel the mercury spacecraft has four basic attitude control modes which can be used singly or in various combinations these modes also utilize different sets of rcs thrusters on the spacecraft there are two completely independent rcs systems on the mercury capsule the automatic system using a pair of high and a pair of low torque reaction jets for each axis and the manual system with a single set of proportional reaction jets each of these systems has its own fuel supply and are therefore completely redundant the automatic stabilization and control mode which is currently failing glenn attempts to hold attitude automatically and uses the automatic control jets the manual proportional mode locks out the high torque jets of the automatic system and slews the spacecraft with the smaller proportional one-pound rcs jets this mode uses mechanical linkages to solenoid valves and while it uses an extravagant amount of fuel and is not precise it is the emergency method of control in the event of a power failure a second manual mode known as fly-by-wire allows the astronaut to manually operate the automatic system of jets with electronic signals sent from the hand controller it is the most versatile and popular of the manual control systems and it is the solution which glenn chooses for this specific problem [Music] finally a third manual mode called rate command is essentially a fly-by-wire system superimposed onto the manual rcs jets the astronaut may be able to precisely move the capsule while only using manual system fuel in this mode it is generally saved until re-entry glenn flies the spacecraft in the manual fly-by-wire system for the remainder of the flight as friendship 7 crosses over cape canaveral at the start of its second orbit flight systems controller don arabian notifies flight director chris kraft that he is seeing an indication called segment 51. segment 51 is the landing bag signal the warning light is indicating that the landing bag which is located underneath the heat shield has deployed the rubberized landing bag is designed to soften the blow upon impact with the water if the signal is correct the implication is that the heat shield may be loose if so john glenn will have no protection against the 3000 degree entry temperatures mercury control scrambles to address the problem say that over again now i'm not sharing with you uh capcom well we had a valid segment 51 as we went over here which is what indicating the landing bag is down [Music] uh it's probably a failure of malfunctioning of the microswitch we had it valid here and we also had valid over the hangar on tm the mood inside changes dramatically meanwhile glenn floats above and continues making observations on everything from his spacesuit temperature to the view no outside or no uh bad feelings at all i am surprised that i can look as close to the sun as i can the sun is shining directly on my face at present time and all i have to do is just shave my eyes with my eyebrows mercury control instructs astronaut gordon cooper to query john on the position of the landing bag switch but they also instruct gordo not to tell john why inside mercury control top brass starts filing in to address the problem that uh whose people's lives depend upon you making good decisions and the correct ones max faget the designer suggests that the straps of the retro rocket package may be the only thing holding the heat shield in place and if so it should be left on during re-entry rather than jettisoned prior as is the normal procedure i can show you on a diagram it's a little hard to explain but basically it's more indicative that the heat shield limits which is malfunctioned and the the landing bag deploy really haven't momentarily human hand why don't you come out and talk stand by one here you are john roger there's an indication right there i think we're sure that one thing that you might think the straps would hold the thing onto it the retro straps this is that's roger they would hold it on there's no question about it right but if the um we want the astronaut to put the switch in the auto position in the auto position if he gets a red light indicating that the bag has been deployed and we want him to re-enter with the pack on no one knows what the aerodynamic effects are of keeping the package attached no one knows if they have sufficient control authority with the attitude jets to keep the spacecraft oriented in such a scenario no one knows whether or not keeping the package attached would cause physical damage to the heat shield nasa was now operating well outside the bounds of their design knowledge they had entered uncharted waters chris craft recognizes that the indication comes from a single sensor it cannot be verified by a different system and may be a phantom signal altogether with only a single data point the discussion on the ground is at an impasse glenn orbits on blissfully unaware of the panicked situation on the ground however he becomes suspicious when sight after sight consecutively asks him to ensure that his landing bag deploy switch is off alright roger did someone report landing back could be down over a negative we had a request to monitor this and to ask you if you heard any flapping uh when you had high capital rates negative this was over well i think they probably thought these particles i saw might have come from that but these are there are thousands of these things and they go out for uh it looks like miles in each direction from me and they move by here very slowly the operations team conclude that retaining the retro pack is the only possible way and with the blessing of the designer fajar choose this as the course forward tracking station hawaii tells glenn to place the landing bag deploy switch in the automatic position and then report whether or not a light comes on from this query glenn mentally deduces what the situation is wally shara in california communicates to glenn that the retro pack would have to be left on during re-entry glenn gently presses him to admit why but he doesn't push it glenn knows what the problem is but he also knows people are listening glenn is frustrated that mission control are not being entirely honest with him as to the situation of his own spacecraft in glenn's judgment the astronaut should be kept fully informed of all possible issues lest they lose communication with the the ground package on to the entire reentry this means that you will have to override the 05 g switch which is expected to occur at 0 4 4 3 3. this also means that you will have to manually retract the scope and you read uh this is friendship seven now what is the reason for this do you have any reason over here this is the judgment of cheap flight roger say again your instructions please over after just three orbits it is decided to initiate retro fire after just three orbits glenn is coming home five four three two one five roger retros are firing are they ever it feels like i'm going back toward hawaii the runner fire retro light is greener four and a half hours into flight friendship seven fires its retro package and breaks out of earth orbit there was no turning back now glenn was headed for a rendezvous with the atmosphere he would either slow down or burn up glenn starts to hear noises that he describes as small things brushing against the capsule the orbital re-entry does not impart the high g-loads of the ballistic flights its trajectory is much more depressed and the spacecraft remains in the high atmosphere for quite a bit longer but it does impart much higher peak temperatures glenn experiences his worst emotional stress of the flight as he watches burning chunks fly by his window likely pieces of the retro pack or were they pieces of his heat shield this is friendship seven i think the pack just let go friendship seven a real fireball outside friendship seven that's escape over all three of them friendship seven this is keep over [Applause] okay friendship seven over okay friendship seven over hello friendships have a deer save over i'm getting all kinds of contrails and stuff outside out here [Music] all right you're reading a lot clear how you doing [Applause] my condition is good but that was a real fireball boy i had great chunks of that retro pack breaking off all the way through but it's good it did price off is that correct roger altimeter off the back indicating eight zero thousand roger will be within one mile of the upbringing destroyer recovery weather is very uh the destroyer has the capsule parachute inside they are talking roger did you copy that friendship 7 breaks scattered cloud cover and descends through 5 000 feet 40 miles short of its planned landing site but nonetheless with invisible range of the u.s navy destroyer noah the cause for the landing bag signal a micro switch malfunction the heat shield was never loose america's first foray into orbital flight had been a blend of awe and chaos nobody could have predicted the problems encountered yet the system triumphed america was back in the game john glenn becomes the kind of old-fashioned star-spangled hero that nasa needs a very public face to a struggling space program it was a turning point an unfortunate side effect of this is that glenn would not be considered for future space flights much to his own disappointment after coming so close nasa dared not risk losing him again he would now serve as a liaison to the public a pr man glenn would eventually serve 25 years in the united states senate and would after all fly into space again on the shuttle in 1998 the next flight much like liberty bell 7 would have to prove that the mercury capsule was capable of reliable operation that flight is given to astronaut deke slayton and his ship delta seven donald kent slayton is a pilot's pilot he flew tactical bombers in the second world war and learned to traverse the skies when doing so was more of an art and less of a science like many of the other mercury astronauts he drinks and smokes unlike the other astronauts however deke slayton suffers from cardiac dysrhythmia which was apparently not detected during his application and medical testing it is detected prior to the launch of mercury atlas 7 when slayton is training in a centrifuge and further testing leads to a diagnosis of idiopathic atrial fibrillation though he is deemed healthy enough to fly aircraft nasa administrator james webb leads an internal investigation which ultimately disqualifies him for the flight he is replaced by scott carpenter who served as glenn's backup for the ma6 mission deak starts exercising more regularly and abstains from drinking alcohol but he won't get a chance to fly into space for another decade and a half during this time he serves as a senior manager of the astronaut office and is ultimately given the responsibility for making crew assignments and selections it is because of deak slayton that neil armstrong is the first man to set foot on the moon scott carpenter renames the capsule to aurora 7 and after a flawless countdown absent from delays or technical issues he rides the fire into the wild blue yonder on may 24 [Music] all your third 1962 perfect cap all three start lights are correct range ready light is always eject mercury and belt retract light until it goes out the scope is in the light is out [Music] and [Music] [Applause] [Music] three clear blue sky 32 seconds 9 000 fuel and oxygen steady cabin pressure 15 1 and dropping a little rough through max q and one minute oh roger you're looking good from here okay 25 amps and the power is good roger you're looking good all the power is good all right your pitch is 56 roger pitch looks good it's smoothing down a little bit now i feel the pitch program starting over but this guy is getting quite black at 1 30. he lapsed fuel and oxygen is steady cabin pressure is leveling off at 6-2 [Music] hi roger there's pico on time and uh roger understand biko but i felt staging do you confirm did you feel confirmed staging this [Music] [Applause] [Music] sometimes oh look at that red at this time oh man a wide a beautiful beautiful [Music] uh great i get john's pictures [Music] uh going to fly by wire [Music] i am now photographing large cloud banks what in the world happened to the periscope [Music] oh it's dark that's what happened in facing a dark earth it's quite dark i didn't begin to get time to dark adapt i have the fireflies i have the particle some even appear to be going ahead there is one outside almost like a light a snowflake particle caught in an eddy they are not glowing with their own light at this time carpenter enters orbit without a hitch glenn's flight had proven that an astronaut would in fact be able to function in zero g carpenter would build on that experience the mission of aurora 7 is jam-packed with attitude maneuvers zero-g experiments and observation exercises carpenter's flight plan is expanded to permit him to use maneuvering fuel at his own discretion and use it he does [Music] carpenter has been described as a romantic he is fascinated by the beauty of space and goes to great lengths to capture the finer details of space flight like glenn he observes the firefly phenomena and also notices that the spacecraft's onboard instruments do not necessarily agree with where it is pointed carpenter tests several types of space food prepared for the flight by the pillsbury company bars composed of chocolate figs and dates with high protein cereal the nestle company provides bonbons composed of orange peel and almonds carpenter finds them crumbly and bothersome on the start of his second orbit carpenter begins aggressively maneuvering his spacecraft to make observations he pitches down 80 degrees over wumera he yaws around another 50 degrees to observe air glow he rolls the capsule until the earth is directly above his window on six separate occasions he accidentally actuated the high thrust rcs jets of the automatic system he was now eating through both systems fuel supplies by the end of the first two orbits aurora 7's rcs propellants had dropped to 42 in the manual system and 45 in the automatic system tracking stations repeatedly remind him to conserve his fuel carpenter conducts a small internal experiment into microgravity he observes the behavior of liquid in a weightless state inside a closed glass bottle he also conducts an external experiment deploying a multi-colored balloon into space the movement of the half-inflated balloon was erratic and unpredictable but he managed to obtain a few drag resistance measurements [Music] he also attempts to hold a steady attitude by centering the moon in his window glenn had reported some difficulty in obtaining and holding an absolute heading likely due to his sticky rcs thruster carpenter however is able to hold the moon on the exact center mark and maintain the position with ease carpenter also finds that he is able to reproduce the fireflies by tapping against the capsule hatch it is decided to bring aurora 7 home after three orbits everything had gone successfully but the spacecraft was dangerously low on fuel in preparing for retrofire carpenter begins to make several critical errors passing over hawaii carpenter states that he is somewhat behind on the pre-retro checklist while verifying his hypothesis about the snowflake-like particles outside his window as he begins aligning the spacecraft into retrograde attitude he finds that like in glenn's case the automatic stabilization system will not hold the correct heading as he tries to troubleshoot the situation he falls even further behind schedule uh i am looking down almost vertically it's possible to distinguish i believe four separate cloud layers [Applause] can we get over the checklist we have approximately three minutes left of contact hi roger go ahead with the checklist and i'm coming to uh retro attitude now and my control mode is automatic and fortunately we had alan shepard uh in california that could talk him into doing the retro fire and getting into the position to fire uh the retro rockets he had floundered and and gotten rid of all of his propellant must messing around with the spacecraft uh he was using the controls both automatic and manual and almost run out of fuel and when he came up on hawaii and when he was supposed to be in retro fire attitude that is the right attitude to fire his rockets he was not even he was turned the wrong way uh and it was a it was touch and go and i think mr shepherd should get the credit for talking him into the right attitude and giving him the directions as to how to fire the rockets manually which he did and he was late in firing them and he was at the wrong angle when he fired rockets so that extended his time at uh high uh a g during entry he got up to about 12 g with normal entry was around nine which is very high anyway stand by wait a minute i have a problem in i have an ascs problem here i think ascs is not operating properly let me attitudes do not agree five minutes to retrograde light is on i have a rate of descent too of about 10 12 feet per second aurora 7 is traveling at nearly 5 miles every second being even slightly off and timing or heading would translate to huge errors downrange for 10 minutes fuel from both systems is being used redundantly as carpenter wrestles control away from the automatic system and hurriedly switches to the fly-by-wire control mode carpenter would have to push the button to ignite the solid fuel retro rockets manually and physically hold the correct attitude through the burn at some point throughout this process carpenter becomes disoriented and loses track of what his heading is when retro fire does come it comes three seconds late and 25 degrees in the wrong direction retro sequence is green all right check ascs quickly to see if the orientation mode will hold but you'll have to use attitude bypass man and now you'll override my rusher four three two one zero okay fire one fire two and fire three i had to punch off manually i have a little bit of smoke in the capsule uh let's do those buddy okay i think they held well al the uh um i think they were good i can't tell you what was wrong about them but because the gyros were not quite right but uh retro jettison yeah three few switches are on all right we see that regular jettison in about 10 seconds roger that was a nice gentle bump all three have fired retro attitude was a red all right here we see that record that is now ah right then at 34 10 on time all right roger uh how much fuel do you have leftover thanks i have 20 and five roger i guess we better use uh i'll use manual on re-entry unless asc i told you in the entry attitude yes it can i'll have to do it with manuel by the time retro fire is completed scott carpenter is out of manual rcs fuel and his automatic system is down to 25 aurora 7 did manage to break orbit but it's now heading for a splashdown point 200 nautical miles off target during re-entry he uses small spurts of whatever fuel he has left to maintain a slow roll and attitude stability throughout the descent somewhere between 80 and 70 000 feet of altitude aurora 7 runs out of rcs propellant entirely star holding to within one and a half degrees per second indicating about 10 degrees per second raw right aurora 7 splashes down hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest ship when carpenter fails to raise a response by radio he decides to leave his spacecraft opting to ex-fill through the auxiliary egress hatch at the top of the vehicle rather than through the primary side hatch carpenter inflates his life raft and crawls out into the ocean it would be an hour and seven minutes until carpenter would be reached by recovery forces who came upon him eating a candy bar and enjoying the view of the ocean when he was picked up he is quoted as saying i didn't know where i was and mission control didn't either this phrase combined with his nonchalant attitude about the situation enrages certain individuals in mission control including flight director chris kraft because of this experience carpenter is blacklisted from future space flights he will never fly into space again by this time both the united states and the soviet union had flown two orbital missions the soviet's second mission vostok ii had stayed in space for just over a day with cosmonaut german tetov making over 17 orbits it soon becomes clear that flight duration would be the first contest in the long march to the moon with duration as the new goal mercury control is keen to avoid astronauts like scott carpenter who liberally burned through his fuel the pilot for the next mission mercury atlas eight would have to be carpenter's opposite someone who was strictly business and had little time for quote mickey mousing they found their man in wali shura his flight nicknamed sigma-7 would not be scientific in nature but rather a strictly engineering checkout on the durability of the mercury spacecraft in orbit wally wants to fly the perfect mission he cuts out any activity in the flight plan that he deems unnecessary he approaches his mission with a test pilot's mind sigma 7 is aiming to double the duration of the previous missions and will attempt to make six orbits of the earth instead of three wally also fancies himself an avid photographer and purchases an expensive swedish manufactured hasselblad film camera prior to the flight the results impressed nasa so much that hasselblad's become the camera of choice for future space flights just two months prior to ma8 the ussr launches the vostok3 and vostok4 missions in intersecting orbits the cosmonauts on board are able to see each other in space and while it isn't strictly a rendezvous it was close enough to make nasa nervous what's more the two missions complete 64 and 48 orbits respectively just under four and three days landing within a few minutes of each other on august 15th this is far ahead of anything planned for mercury the soviet union had once again asserted its dominance in space but for wally the countdown continues and he flies the atlas into orbit on october 3rd 1962. [Music] hi what's yeah [Music] is [Music] [Applause] now [Music] okay [Music] [Applause] it's real [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] we're trying to get [Applause] during the boost phase capcom deke slayton pops wally an interesting question the ancient and honorable order of turtles is an inside joke between world war ii pilots self-described as an honorable drinking fraternity composed of ladies and gentlemen of the highest morals and good character when a group of turtles are gathered in a social function it is customary for the question to be asked are you a turtle today the correct reply being you bet your sweet ass i am if the member is unable or unwilling to provide the correct answer immediately perhaps because of a social restriction on vulgarity say at a wedding or while flying into space while hundreds of thousands are listening the member owes to each turtle present a drink of the recipient's choice wally does not utter his answer on the air but rather speaks it into an onboard tape recorder which he produces after the flight after separating from the atlas booster shiraz slowly cartwheels into the correct attitude he deliberately keeps the motion of the spacecraft slow to conserve fuel the sustainer engine on the atlas rocket had continued burning 10 seconds longer than planned sending wally higher and faster than any other astronaut had gone or would go during project i'll put it right mercury again just to show you how easy it is to record [Music] oh i've got some lights down there how about that i got a washer in here [Applause] the washer as on each of the previous two missions several stations on the ground fire flares into the sky as the spacecraft passes overhead and like on each of the previous flights the pilot is not able to observe them despite mild overheating in his suit everything was going swimmingly by the end of the first orbit he had only used one and a half pounds of fuel he is not struck by the beauty of space as glenn or carpenter had been he continues diligently working in his tasks spending most of the time looking at his instruments rather than looking out the window [Music] he consumes yet more experimental space food this time peaches and ground beef mush out of squeeze tubes [Music] shiraz spends a lot of his time drifting with the rcs system turned off simply letting the spacecraft coast on uncontrolled [Music] he laments the fact that for most of the flight many of the earth observation sites are covered in clouds on the sixth and final orbit sigma-7 comes within range of the pacific command ship a mission that had lasted twice as long as aurora 7. shura still has 78 of his fuel left in both systems 8 hours and 52 minutes after sigma 7 lifted off from the cape wally shura makes a perfect retro fire he remains on the automatic stabilization system throughout the burn and is surprised to see that the spacecraft maintains perfect attitude throughout the boost a quick glance at his rcs fuels after the burn shows that the automatic fuel system had dropped to 52 percent in the process at the request of the engineers shura remains on automatic control during re-entry he watches as the hydrogen peroxide fuel is hungrily consumed as the spacecraft fights the aerodynamic forces of the upper atmosphere that she's holding real tight very tight i got two my attitudes were right on the money i got three and i have a roll rate started a slight pitch right not bad at all i can see out the window for some strange reason it lands and the attitude looks very stable i'm rolling right around the horizon i can see the ion layers pretty fast i can see the drone now the road looks very appearance i'm going to lock that to actually haven't needed big demand is burning itself out and off staff is doing nothing in proper position italian fuel is almost all gone there goes rogue and maine is out it's oh she's not beautiful nice blue sky man is about 35 at this time i see no problems at all after 9 hours and 13 minutes of flight sigma 7 splashes down half a mile from the uss kearsarge in full view of the crew and onboard cameras it had been a perfect splash down following a perfect mission within 40 minutes of hitting the water shira was standing on the deck of the carrier it was the first splashdown in the pacific ocean just off midway island sigma 7 was the most successful mercury mission to date and may have been more memorable if not for the news event that would shock the world just two weeks after the mission's conclusion [Music] on october 15 1962 u2 spy plane overflights of cuba confirmed the worst the deployment of offensive soviet r-7 semyorka icbms in the western hemisphere the following international stalemate and naval quarantine comes to be known as the cuban missile crisis during which time the entire space program is shut down as atlas missiles across the country the same kind that are propelling mercury astronauts into orbit are armed with nuclear warheads and prepare to fly towards their targets inside russia it is the closest america has ever come to nuclear war unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island the purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the western hemisphere the size of this undertaking makes clear that it has been planned for some months nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles or [Music] [Music] everyone by then even those in the space program had forgotten that despite the bliss and grandeur of making mankind's first explorations of the heavens above those explorations were being made on weapon systems which also make possible the absolute destruction of the modern world the implications were very very real and the terrifying true nature of this possibility is laid bare during a few weeks in october 1962. a flashpoint that fizzles america's military returns home from a war that never happened the icbms of the united states and the soviet union across the world the harbingers of mutually assured destruction stand down for now well i didn't know how worried i was looking i i was worried there was no question about that and uh until i saw the tape of the press conference i didn't realize how worried i was the success of mercury atlas viii and the twin flights of vostok 3 and 4 had been a death knell for mercury the project had brought much success but nasa couldn't keep doing the same old thing for long it was time to think bigger and kennedy's moon speech at rice university in texas sends a clear message to everyone it's time to think bigger and move faster mercury atlas 10 a flight which was originally assigned to alan shepard is cancelled the next flight ma9 would be mercury's last as nasa rapidly prepares the new two-man gemini capsule and builds a brand new mission control center in houston texas business of space operations involves very high risk and the tools that we use are leadership trust teamwork and values and the people who implement these two use these tools to implement the missions are the men and women of mission control you have to establish a frame of mind that is absolutely positive one that cannot be defeated and the best way to express that i will never surrender attitude is failure is not an option ma9 would be given to the only astronaut who hadn't yet flown and was still qualified to fly gordo cooper his mission like glenn's would be open-ended using the experience gained from sigma 7 gordo would attempt to push the mercury capsule to its limits aiming to stay in orbit for an entire day and even longer if possible gordo ironically nicknames his spacecraft faith seven in a snide attempt to show that he was praying the flight would go well after the first manned gemini mission officials at nasa would eventually ban the naming of spacecraft until apollo in 1969. [Music] changes are made to the hardware based on wally shiraz advice 12 pounds of control equipment 5 pounds of radio equipment and a 76 pound periscope are removed in total there are 183 alterations made to increase fuel and electricity margins and to extend the life of the spacecraft several cameras are also introduced including a slow scan television camera that would allow gordo to broadcast images of himself back down to the ground for the day-long mission the capsule faith 7 weighs over 3 000 pounds or 1400 kilograms because faith 7 will orbit nearly every part of the earth from 32 and a half degrees north to 32 and a half degrees south a total of 28 ships 171 aircraft and 18 000 servicemen are assigned to support the mission [Music] may 15 1963 gordo cooper becomes the last american to fly into space alone atop his lumbering atlas missile he flies forward into the unknown two one roger you're looking beautiful [Music] [Applause] is roger we have a good go here [Music] because [Music] as amateurs on the ground everything was going perfectly and dead on schedule i'm on off stamp like fly by wire everything is green here uh face seven base seven this is canary capcom roger canary capcom phase seven really unclear as astronaut cooper finished his first orbit of the earth about 90 minutes after takeoff it was obvious all was going well now came the time to decide how many trips he would make as his first goal that decision was announced by colonel john powers information officer for project mercury cooper's mission is a blend of carpenters and shiraz he spends most of the time drifting not using any fuel but his flight plan is jam-packed with experiments measuring everything from radiation to propellant slosh between orbits 9 and 13 he enters a rest period after a dinner of powdered roast beef mush and water he admittedly isn't sleepy and spends most of the time taking pictures this is a new and strange environment at first this suddenly finding yourself in orbit and want to take a few seconds time to think about this and see just what you're doing out here it takes you a few minutes to really settle down the added distraction is that there is the earth in view out of the window it is a tremendous distraction you want to glue your eyes on the window and watch every little detail of everything that's going on there by his 14th orbit cooper reports sufficient oxygen supplies 69 automatic fuel and 95 manual fuel he is able to get an hour of sound sleep during the flight and also transmits the first american television images from space i would like to take this time to say a little prayer for all the people thank you for the privilege of being able to be in this position the evidence [Applause] okay 15 minutes before sunset major cooper prepared to eject this sphere or beacon for another experiment to find out how well man can see flashing lights in space to help with rendezvous and docking maneuvers in future space programs orbits 15 16 17 18 18 times around the earth the first of a series of tests were begun to measure radiation in space where a belt of fission electrons trapped in the lower regions of the earth's magnetic field would be penetrated by faith seven on orbits passing over eastern south america and the south atlantic ocean primarily the measurements were made by two geiger counters located on the retro pack one of the geiger counters surveyed a hemisphere-shaped area unobstructed by the spacecraft and unaffected by radiation scattered by its structure the other registered radiation directly in the path of travel trapped electrons spiraling along the earth's magnetic flux lines were primarily the source of radiation it was now nearing 30 hours since liftoff on the 19th orbit the condition of faith 7 begins deteriorating it starts innocuously enough as a false indication 0.05 g light comes on indicating that the vehicle is starting to decelerate the reading is faulty as faith 7 is still drifting weightlessly in orbit [Music] just half an hour later cooper loses all attitude readings on the next orbit a short circuit occurs in the bus bar serving the 250 volt main inverter this leaves the automatic stabilization and control system without electrical power the spacecraft had lost its onboard computer it is then decided that faith 7 should return home at the end of the 21st orbit preparations are made for retro fire when the ascs inverter blew out cooper also noted that the carbon dioxide level was rising in both his suit and cabin the calm and collected cooper continues diligently working in his tasks as systems around him begin to fail faith seven is dying like carpenter cooper has to conduct retro fire manually unlike carpenter cooper's manual retro fire is accurate to a tee [Music] [Applause] [Music] roger i think so faith seven splashes down just four and a half kilometers from the carrier in the waters of the blue pacific the fact that cooper like glenn had to take action in the midst of a failing spacecraft added luster and glory to the perception of his flight he is treated to the same massive ticker tape parades and hoopla of his predecessors shepard and glenn he is also found to be dehydrated and suffering from orthostatic hypotension he had lost seven pounds physicians are cautious about the implications of this for even longer space missions the mercury program had fulfilled all of its goals in the process the world had been transformed space flight was no longer a fruitless backwater pursued by old german weapon engineers and starry-eyed comic book readers it now was the cold war it was the new theater upon which the technological prowess of the two most powerful nations in earth's history would be decided but the president that had made it all possible would not even live to see the first american two-man flight into space john f kennedy would fall to an assassin's bullet on november 22 1963 just days after touring the new space complex being built to facilitate the launch of a huge new family of rockets called saturn in the meantime the upcoming project gemini would either make or break america's march to the moon and therefore we intend to be first you

Channel: Homemade Documentaries

Views: 451,084

Rating: 4.8491473 out of 5

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Id: X8iUg1O0fN4

Length: 152min 15sec (9135 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 04 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/LowTechDesigns]

My mother was the secretary to the McDonnell Douglas director of flight operations at the Cape for the Mercury and Gemini programs. She documented debriefings conducted by her boss with the astronauts when they returned from space. This is a very well done film and brought many memories back from my youth, 1963-68.

[u/FrankyPi]

I discovered this channel recently and it's amazing. I watched Apollo ones and it's filled with details I never knew before.

[u/postnull]

This is great, thanks for sharing!

[u/rustiancho]

This channel is amazing, I just started watching it the past couple days constantly. So many great documentaries. Apparently Charlie Duke watched the Apollo 16 episode and thought it was an amazing presentation.

[u/MichJohn67]

When I was a kid we had this asshole crazed poodle. Freaking psychotic. After he ate my dad's wallet with the rent money, he had to go. So we gave him to a guy who washed out of the Mercury program.

Six degrees . . . .

[u/sweetdick]

Fantastic!

[u/PM_Me_Squirrel_Gifs]

Oh hey my Grandpa was in Project Mercury! Gonna watch it now and see if I spot him

[u/bigbootyjoes]

This is phenomenal

[u/tuwxyz]

I have just spent 5 hours watching content on this channel. Phenomenal. Apollo 16 will brighten your day.