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Freedom 7
1st American into space

The main scientific objective of project Mercury was to determine man's capabilities in a space environment and in those environments to which he will be subject upon going into and returning from space. A few of the basic flight problems included: The development of an automatic escape system, vehicle control during insertion, behavior of space systems, evaluation of pilots capabilities in space, in flight monitoring, retrofire and reentry maneuvers and landing and recovery.

The name "Freedom Seven" was Alan Shepard's choice. "Freedom" because it was patriotic and "Seven" because it was the seventh Mercury capsule produced. It also represented the seven Mercury astronauts. To help relieve any tension Shepard might have built up before his flight, Glenn pasted a little sign on the spacecraft instrument panel, reading "No handball playing here." This bit of levity hearkened back to their training days.

At T-15 minutes it was necessary to hold the count again to make a final check of the real-time trajectory computer. A small electrical part had a problem and this resulted in an hour and twenty six minute delay. Shepard was on top of the Redstone for so long now that he had to urinate. "Gordo!" he said, talking to Gordon Cooper, a fellow Mercury Seven astronaut and principal prelaunch communicator. "Go, Alan." "Man, I got to pee." "You what?" "You heard me. I've got to pee. I've been up here forever."

Crew members of U.S.S Champlain cheer arrival of Astronaut Alan Shepard

Shepard wanted to be let out but there wasn't time to reassemble the White Room. Thinking that he could be up there for hours, he told them he was going to do it in his suit. Unfortunately, there was no urine collection system and the medics were concerned he would short-circuit the leads. "Tell 'em to turn the power off!" Alan snapped. Cooper, with a chuckle in his voice said, "Okay, Alan. Power's off. Go to it."

Shepard couldn't hold back any longer and the liquid pooled in the small of his back. His heavy undergarment soaked up the urine, and with 100 percent oxygen flowing through the suit he was soon dry. The countdown resumed.

Rescue helicopter crew drop Astronaut Shepard a hoisting sling after landing

At T- minus two minutes and forty seconds and counting, Shepard heard that dreaded word again, "Hold". There was a little computer problem. Getting frustrated, he yelled, "I've been in here more than three hours. I'm a hell of a lot cooler than you guys. Why don't you just fix your little problem and light this candle?"

They fixed the problem and the countdown proceeded until liftoff at 9:34 am EST on 5/5/1961. Because of his excitement, Shepard said he failed to hear much of the closing countdown, with the exception of the firing command. During this period his pulse rate rose from 80 per minute to 126 at the liftoff signal. "You're on your way, Jose!" Deke Slayton shouted. "Roger, liftoff, and the clock has started," Alan called out.

Astronaut Alan Shepard onboard helicopter after recovery of Mercury capsule

Shepard saw the umbilical cable supplying prelaunch electrical power to the Mercury-Redstone and its supporting boom fall away. He raised his hand to start the elapsed-time clock that ticked off the seconds of the flight. The ride continued smoothly for about 45 seconds; then the rocket, capsule, and astronaut began vibrating. Conditioned to these circumstances, Shepard realized that he was passing through the transonic speed zone, where turbulence built up. The buffeting became rugged at the point of maximum aerodynamic pressures, about 88 seconds after liftoff; Shepard's head and helmet were bouncing so hard that he could not read his panel dials.

Pressed by 6 g at two minutes after launch, Shepard still was able to report "all systems go." The Redstone's engine shut down on schedule at 142 seconds, having accelerated the astronaut to a velocity of 5,134 miles per hour, close to the nominal speed. After engine cutoff, Shepard heard the tower-jettison rocket fire and turned his head to peer out the port, hoping that he might see the smoke from the pyrotechnics. There was no smoke, but the green tower-jettison light on his panel assured him that the pylon was gone. Shepard strained in his couch under an acceleration that hit a peak g load of 6.3. Outside the capsule the shingle temperature reached 220 degrees F, but inside the cabin the temperature was only 91 degrees. The astronaut was hardly perspiring in his pressure suit at 75 degrees.

Freedom 7 capsule is rescued by helicopter at end of MR-3 flight

When he tried to observe the scene below him, Shepard immediately noticed that the periscope had the medium gray filter in place. While waiting on the pad, he had used this filter to eliminate the glare of the intermittently bright sunlight and had planned to remove the filter when he retracted the periscope, just before launch. But being otherwise occupied at the time, he had forgotten to make the change. During spacecraft turnaround he tried to remove the filter, but as he reached for the filter knob the pressure gauge on his left wrist banged into the abort handle. He carefully pulled his hand away. After that he forgot about the intensity filter and observed the wondrous sights below through the gray slide. "What a beautiful view!"

While riding down the reentry curve toward a water landing, Shepard again assumed the fly-by-wire mode of control. As the reentry loads began to build up to a peak of 11.6 g, the oscillations also increased moderately. As soon as the highest g point had passed and the spacecraft had steadied, Shepard left fly-by-wire and cut in the automatic control system. As the altimeter dial slipped past 40,000 feet, the astronaut braced and listened closely for the drogue mortar to fire. He gave the Cape a reading of 30,000 feet, and 9000 feet later the drogue snapped out without a kick. The antenna canister atop the spacecraft blew off as planned at 10,000 feet, pulling the main parachute with it. Shepard clearly saw and felt it in its initial reefed and partially unfurled condition, which prevented the lines from snapping. Within seconds it spread to its 63-foot diameter, giving the astronaut a reassuring jolt.

Alan Shepard, Mrs. Shepard, Mrs. Kennedy, President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson, at the White House.
(Courtesy Rear Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr.)

Freedom 7 splashed and listed over into the water on the astronaut's right side, about 60 degrees from an upright position. The chutes cast loose automatically on impact to prevent dragging. As the water sloshed over the ports, the spaceman saw the fluoresceing dye spreading over an ever increasing area. Shepard quickly checked the spacecraft interior to see if any leaks had resulted from impact. There were none; it was dry. Now slowly Freedom 7 came to an upright position, taking about a minute's time, and Shepard jubilantly reported to Cardfile 23, the communications airplane, that he was all right. From beginning to end the flight mission had been almost perfect.

Capitalist Man on the Moon's Back Nine

Alan Shepard in June, 1961 became the first American to fly in space and in that cold-war permeated year, he represented the best that capitalism could produce. A few weeks before Shepard's flight, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin had been the first man ever to orbit Planet Earth. Gargarin's flight was far longer, his rocket bigger. But NASA spun Shepard's flight as a clash of ideologies: what mattered was that the capitalist astronaut could and did make limited decisions about his capsule's maneuvers while the communist cosmonaut was a passive passenger whose path was decided by a committee. Of such minutia were the rhetorical stakes of the arms race composed: we, free men; they, automata.

Alan Shepard, commander of the Apollo XIV mission.
(Courtesy of Rear Admiral Alan Shepard)

Gargarin's orbit in April, 1961 humiliated the US defense establishment as surely as Russia's pioneering satellite Sputnik had four years earlier. The US had felt pressured to step up its timetable - Shepard's initial flight in the Mercury Freedom VII was to have taken place months later. Even so Shepard's suborbital effort clearly didn't match the Russians. JFK, three weeks after Shepard had safely splashed down, promised to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. They own Siberia; We will own the Moon.

Shepard was among the best of the US test pilots, and he was a steady and impressive personality. "I want to be first because I want to be first," he said before he flew. And they said the Russians were automata.

Alan Shepard on the Moon in 1971.

On the day of the flight, Shepard recalled, "I walked out, and looked at that huge rocket, the Redstone rocket, for the first time. Of course it's not huge by today's standards, but it seemed pretty big then. And I thought, well now, there is that little rascal, and I'm going to get up on top and fly that thing. And you know, pilots always go out to airplanes and kick the tires before they fly. Nobody would let me near the rocket to kick the fins, but I kind of walked around and thought, well, I'll take a good look at it, because I'll never see that part of the machine again. And the excitement started building, I think, at that point."

Lying on his back atop the rocket, waiting through delays for Freedom VII to blast off, Shepard's bladder filled to bursting. But Werner von Braun, NASA's hardass ex-Nazi flight chief, wouldn't let him get out to take a piss. So Shepard went ahead and relieved himself in his spacesuit. "Weh-ayl," he drawled in the southern dialect that fighter pilots affect no matter where they hail from (Shepard was from New Hampshire), "I'm a wetback now." A few moments later he said, "Why don't you fix your little problem and light this candle." So they did, sending Shepard into his 14-minute rendezvous with suborbital glory. He later recalled that his brief period of weightlessness was "pleasant." He had little time for other emotion - too busy making those minute capitalist man course adjustments.

August, 26, 1971. Alan Shepard is promoted to admiral in a ceremony at the Pentagon. Navy Secretary John H. Chafee does the honors as Shepard, recently returned from the Moon, becomes the first astronaut to achieve star rank. At the time, he was the only one of the original seven astronauts still on flight status with the space program.
(UPI/Bettmann)

He was grounded for a decade after his initial blastoff by inner ear problems unrelated to space flight. He drew desk duty, supervising astronaut training. His ears were surgically corrected and he went on in 1971 to captain Apollo XIV to the moon. There he made his greatest contribution to the US Space program.

It is often argued that manned space flight is a waste of money and technology, that there is almost nothing that a man can accomplish in space that a machine can't do better and cheaper. But the critics have neglected golf. At the end of the two-day lunar hike and rock collecting trip, Shepard produced a makeshift six-iron and two balls, which he whacked successfully. He justified golf as a way to demonstrate the difference in gravity between earth and moon. "The balls are still up there," he said. "Perhaps the youngsters of today will go up and play golf with them some time, 25 or 30 years from now." (We in the gallery are still waiting, 27 years later.)

On planet Earth this made him one of the most popular golfing buddies anywhere. Golfers paid thousands to hit with him, money that Shepard contributed to charity. In his memorial statement, President Clinton said that Shepard "lived every golfer's dream," and said that the lunar drives traveled "for miles and miles." Both statements were sad examples of White House lies and hyperbole. Few golfers dream of hitting on the moon, and the balls traveled far less than one mile.

While on the moon, Shepard experienced a rare moment of emotion. "You think it's pretty big when you're back there among your friends and it's 25,000 miles around. But from that distance you realize it is, in fact, fragile." This led to a political revelation: "Perhaps we could put the Security Council in the space station and let them try to see where their little bailiwick is." On the other hand, a small planet would be easily dominated.

Shepard was a loud detractor of Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. On tour to promote his own book, Moon Shot, Shepard said, "We wanted to call [it] 'The Real Stuff' since his was just fiction."

Shepard was credited with introducing into widespread use the phrase "A-OK," which was how a NASA spokesman described his reaction to the success of Freedom VII. It turns out he never said it.

Additional Sources:

www.thespaceplace.com
www.teachspace.org
www.goodbyemag.com
history.msfc.nasa.gov
www.ksc.nasa.gov

On This Day In History

Birthdates which occurred on August 09:
1593 Izaak Walton England, biographer/fisherman/writer (Compleat Angler)
1808 William Thomas Ward, Bvt Major General (Union volunteers)
1823 Daniel Marsh Frost, Brig General (Confederate Army), died in 1900
1824 Simon Goodell Griffin, Bvt Major General (Union volunteers)
1883 George Hoyt NBA hall of fame referee (elected 1961)
1896 Jean Piaget Switz, pioneer developmental psychologist/zoologist
1897 Ralph Wyckoff American pioneer in x-ray crystallography
1909 John Baur museum director/author (American Paintings in 19th Century)
1911 Robert McCormick Danville Ky, NBC newscaster (Current Opinion)
1911 William A Fowler US, astrophysicist (Nobel 1983)
1913 Harry Mills singer (Mills Brothers-Paper Doll)
1913 Herman Talmadge (Sen-D-Ga, Watergate Committee)
1919 Ralph Houk baseball manager (Yankees, Tigers)
1927 Marvin Minsky Artifical intelligence computer scientist (MIT)
1927 Robert Shaw England, actor (Deep, Jaws, Sting, Black Sunday)
1930 Betty Boop animation
1934 Merle Kilgore (songwriter,Ring of Fire,Johnny Reb, Wolverton Mountain)
1938 Rod Laver Australia, tennis ace (1962, 1969 Grand Slam)
1944 Sam Elliot Calif, actor (Big Chill, Fatal Beauty)
1945 Ken Norton Heavyweight Boxing Champ/TV panelist (Gong Show)
1957 Melanie Griffith NYC, actress (Something Wild, Working Girl)
1958 Amanda Bearse actress (Marcy Rhoodes/Darcy-Married With Children)
1963 Whitney Houston Newark NJ, singer (One Moment in Time)

Deaths which occurred on August 09:
1896 Otto Lilenthal killed during a glider test
0117 Mark Ulpius Trajanus, emperor of Rome (98-117)
0378 Flavius Valens, emperor of Byzantium (364-78), dies in battle at 50
1612 Ottavio M Frangipani, Pope elect, dies
1862 Joseph Bennett Plummer, US Union-brig-gen, dies at 42 or 46
1961 Walter Bedell Smith, US general/WW II chief of staff, dies at 75
1962 Hermann Hesse, German/Swiss poet/author (Nobel 1946), dies at 85
1973 Dean Corll shot; he raped & killed 26 boys
1988 Alan Napier (Alfred the Butler on Batman), dies at 85
1995 Jerry Garcia, rock vocalist (Grateful Dead), dies at 53

Reported: MISSING in ACTION
1967 CHERRY ALLEN SHELDON---UNIVERSITY CITY MO.
[REMAINS IDENTIFIED 15 JULY 1999]
1967 LENGYEL LAUREN ROBERT---LYNNFIELD MA.
[03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE IN 98]
1967 MYERS GLENN L.---PENN HILLS PA.
[03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1968 WOLFKEIL WAYNE B.---WILKES BARRE PA.
1968 WINN DAVID W.---AUSTIN MN.
[03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV, ALIVE AND WELL 98]
1969 BECK EDWARD EUGENE JR.---NORTH CANTON OH.
1969 DOTSON JEFFERSON S.---POUND VA.
1969 GOURLEY LAURENT L.---VILLISCA IA.
1969 JANOUSEK RONALD J.---POSEN IL.
1969 KANE BRUCE E.---DEER PARK NY.

POW / MIA Data & Bios supplied by
the P.O.W. NETWORK. Skidmore, MO. USA.

On this day...
0480 -BC- Persia defeats Spartan king Leonidas at Thermopylae
0378 Battle of Adrianople, Visigoth Calvary defeats Roman Army
1638 Jonas Bronck of Holland becomes 1st European settler in the Bronx
1655 Lord Protector Cromwell divides England into 11 districts
1673 Dutch recapture NY from English; regained by English in 1674
1778 Capt Cook passes through Bering Strait
1786 1st ascent of Mt Blanc
1790 Columbia becomes 1st US flagged ship to voyage around the world
1803 1st horses arrive in Hawaii
1829 "Stourbridge Lion" locomotive goes into service
1831 1st US steam engine train run (Albany to Schenectady, NY)
1842 US-Canada border defined by Webster-Ashburton Treaty
1848 Barnburners (anti-slavery) party merges with the Free Soil Party nominating Martin Van Buren for president
1849 Hungarian Republic crushed by Austria & Russia
1854 Henry David Thoreau publishes "Walden"
1855 Battle of Acapulco during Mexican Liberal uprising
1862 Prelude to 2nd Manassas, Jackson is victorious at Battle of Cedar Mt, however Gen Charles S Winder is killed
1864 Battle of Ft Morgan AL
1892 Thomas Edison received a patent for the two-way telegraph which allowed operators to send messages simultaneously over one wire
1893 1st US bowling magazine, Gut Holz, published in NY
1902 Edward VII of England crowned after death of his mother Victoria
1910 Alva Fisher patents electric washing machine
1923 NY State Golf Assoc formed
1930 Betty Boop debutes in Max Fleischer's animated cartoon Dizzy Dishes
1936 Jesse Owens wins 4th gold medal of Berlin Olympics
1942 British arrests Indian nationalist Mohandas K Gandhi
1942 200 Jews escape Mir Ghetto in Poland
1942 Dmitri Shostakovitch's 7th Symphony performed in Leningrad
1942 Vice-Adm Mikawa lands at Guadalcanal, Solomon Island

1945 US drops 2nd atomic bomb "Fat Man" on Japan destroys part of Nagasaki

1946 1st time all major-league baseball games (8) are played at night
1951 Dutch Korea volunteers win US Collective Unit Citation
1956 1st state-wide, state-supported educational TV network, Alabama
1956 South African women demonstrate against pass laws
1960 Race riot in Jacksonville Florida
1961 James B Parsons is 1st black appointed to Federal District Court
1963 Britains rock TV show, Ready Steady Go, premiers
1965 Singapore gains independence from Malaysia (National Day)
1967 Marines launch Operation Cochise
1970 Peruvian Airlines jet carrying 45 US exchange students explodes
1971 Le Roy (Satchel) Paige inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame
1972 Rockwell receives NASA contract to construct the Space Shuttle
1974 Richard Nixon resigns presidency, VP Gerald Ford becomes 38th pres
1979 English seaside resort Brighton gets 1st British nude beach
1981 6 English lifeguards set relay swim record the English Channel (7:17)
1988 Edmonton Oilers trade Wayne Gretzky to LA Kings for $15-$20 millions
1988 Just 1 day after 8/8/88 NY's daily number is 888
1990 12 Arab leaders agree to send pan-Arab forces to protect Saudi Arabia

Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Japan : Nagasaki Memorial Day (1945)
Libya : Sanusi Army Day
Rhode Island : Victory Day
Singapore : National Day (1965)
Zambia : Youth Day
Don't Wait...Celebrate Week (Day 2)
National Apple Week (Day 2)
National Catfish Month

Religious Observances
Christian : Commemoration of St Denys

Religious History
1765 English founder of Methodism John Wesley wrote in a letter: 'You have but one Pattern; follow Him inwardly and outwardly. If other believers will go step for step with you, well; but if not, follow Him!'
1788 Birth of Adoniram Judson, American Baptist missionary. He first sailed to Burma in 1812, and spent nearly all of his remaining 38 years in missionary and literacy work there. Judson translated the entire Bible into Burmese by 1834.
1884 Birth of Kenneth Scott Latourette, Baptist church historian. Teaching at Yale from 1921-53, his greatest writings were his 7-volume History of the Expansion of Christianity (1937-45) and 5-volume Christianity in a Revolutionary Age (1958-62). Latourette died a bachelor.
1942 English Bible expositor Arthur W. Pink wrote in a letter: 'Waiting on the Lord (Isa. 40:31, etc.) describes an attitude of soul when we are engaged in true prayer, but waiting for the Lord is the exercise of patience while His answer tarries.'
1960 The Church of the Lutheran Confession adopted its constitution at a convention held at Watertown, South Dakota. The denomination was formally organized the following January (1961) at Sleepy Eye, Minnesota.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

Thought for the day :
"Someone is speaking well of you."

Media Reports of the Apocalypse...
Wired:
THE LAST NEW THING

You Might Be An Engineer If...
You hesitate to look at something because you don't want to break down its wave function

Doggie Dictionary...
DROOL: Is what you do when your persons have food and you don't.
To do this properly you must sit as close as you can and look sad and let the drool fall to the floor, or better yet, on their laps.

Dumb Laws...
New York New York:
Citizens may not greet each other by "putting one's thumb to the nose and wiggling the fingers".

Today's classic warship, USS Gilligan (DE-508)

John C. Butler class destroyer escort
Displacement. 1,350 t.
Lenght. 306'
Beam. 36'10"
Draft. 13'4"
Speed. 24.3 k.
Complement. 222
Armament. 2 5", 4 40 mm., 10 20 mm., 8 dcp., 2dct., 1 Hedgehog

USS Gilligan (DE-508) was launched 22 February 1944 by the Federal Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Newark, N.J.; sponsored by Mrs. John J. Gilligan, the namesake's mother; and commissioned 12 May 1944, Lt. Comdr. Carl E. Bull, USNR, commanding.

Following shakedown off Bermuda, Gilligan escorted a troopship from New York to Maine and sailed from Norfolk 5 August 1944 to escort an LSD to Pearl Harbor, arriving 30 August. Underway 29 September to escort merchantmen to Eniwetok, she put in at Majuro 13 October and from 16-27 October 1944 escorted merchantmen to Kwajalein, bombarded Mille atoll and Jaluit Island, and sank a 50-foot Japanese schooner, before returning to Majuro the latter date. Gilligan sailed 1 November to escort merchantmen to Eniwetok and Saipan, subsequently mooring at Ulithi 17 November. Three days later, on 20 November, fleet oiler Mississinewa - loaded with more than 400 000 gallons of aviation gasoline - was torpedoed inside Ulithi lagoon with a loss of 50 officers and men. Seconds later, Gilligan saw a miniature Japanese submarine pass close alongside; with other ships she depth-charged within the lagoon and possibly damaged one midget. Destroyer Case rammed and sank another outside the harbor, and Marine planes finished off a third the same day.

Gilligan sailed 4 December as a steamship escort to Manus and conducted patrols off Bougainville from that port until 31 December 1944 when she departed Manus to escort troopships bound for Lingayen Gulf, arriving in time for D-Day, 9 January 1945. Although in constant danger from enemy air attacks, the destroyer escort supported the assault, screened for Attack Group Able of VADM Wilkinson's Task Force 79, and made smoke. Gilligan came under kamikaze attack 12 January. A bluejacket under fire from the attacking plane leaped from his post onto the main battery director and threw it off target, a mistake which prevented the 5-inch guns from getting off more than 14 rounds. The kamikaze crashed directly into the muzzles of Gilligan's No. 2 40mm. gun, killing 12 men and wounding 12, and started raging fires. Outstanding damage control kept the ship seaworthy; she put in at Leyte 17 January for repairs, subsequently reaching Pearl Harbor 21 February for overhaul.

Gilligan sailed again 29 March 1945 as an antisubmarine convoy escort and closed the western beaches of Okinawa 17 April to commence antiaircraft and antisubmarine screening around the transport anchorage. The Japanese were at this time using every conceivable means - kamikazes, submarines, swimmers, and motor boats - to destroy the assembled ships. In spite of heavy air attacks she engaged in screening and escort duties for transports, splashed at least five attacking planes, and possibly damaged a submarine. On 27 May her luck almost ran out; a torpedo bomber hit her solidly with a torpedo, which fortunately was a dud. Gilligan returned to Ulithi 28 June and sailed again 6 July on merchantmen escort duty to Leyte and Hollandia and subsequently closed Manila where she was attached to the Philippine Sea Frontier. On 16 August she sailed to escort merchantmen to Okinawa, returning to Manila 27 August, and repeated this voyage 29 August-25 September 1945. Underway from Manila 5 November, Gilligan reached San Pedro, Calif., 26 November for overhaul. She was towed to San Diego 14 April 1946 and was placed out of commission in reserve at that port 2 July 1946.

Gilligan recommissioned in reserve 15 July 1950 at Seattle and conducted reserve cruises in Pacific Northwest waters, and voyages thence to the Fleet Sonar School at San Diego. Training cruises brought her twice to Hawaii, once to Acapulco, Mexico, and once to the Canal Zone before she decommissioned 31 March 1959 at Point Astoria, Oreg. Stricken 1 March 1972, Gilligan was sold for scrapping 20 November 1973.

Gilligan earned one battle star for World War II service.

John Joseph Gilligan, Jr., born 17 June 1923 at Newark, N.J., enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve 8 January 1942 and served at Parris Island, S.C., and Quantico, Va. Private Gilligan was mortally wounded in action while serving with the First Marine Raider Battalion at Tulagi, Solomon Islands, on 7 August 1942 and died the next day. For his heroism under fire, he was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.