Preflight
Interview: John Glenn
The
STS-95 Crew Interview with John Glenn, payload specialist.
Senator, thanks for being with us.
Glad to be
here, thank you; very glad to be here.
Before
we look ahead to the mission itself, let's look back for a minute.
1958, when you and your colleagues, the Mercury 7, were selected,
how did you feel? Was it an honor, were you nervous, or overwhelmed
by it all?
Well, not nervous,
but I was glad to be selected, it was a very competitive selection
process. NASA had set the selection criteria for the type of people
they wanted: they wanted military test pilots, they wanted people
who had done as much high-speed flying as possible, uh, supersonic
speed if possible, combat time, all of these things. In other words,
they wanted people who had worked through emergencies and had come
through OK. And they started out with, I think it was a hundred
and thirty-some people that fit those basic qualifications out of
all the test pilot schools in the country. Then out of that group
selected down through a long process: physical qualifications, you
had to have a college degree, you had to be under 5'11" or you wouldn't
fit in the capsule -- I made it by about that much on the 5'11".
And so they had all their criteria, worked it down to where the
seven of us were selected. And I was elated at the time because
I thought it was a continuation of the type of test pilot work that
I had come out of a short time before. But it was a brand new project,
and we didn't know that much about it; we were all just sort of
feeling our way along, including all the engineers that we were
working with too. So it was a time of a lot of attention on us but,
uh, it was a time when we were just starting out with the building
blocks that have gone on through the years, flight by flight, to
the tremendous capability we have right now.
Sputnik
had been launched; we already were behind the Soviet Union, at that
time, in space, and here comes a new generation of pioneers, the
Mercury 7; did you feel a sense of urgency to get up into space,
to prove something?
Yes we did,
and you know, people today tend to forget what it was like back
in those days; they don't remember the national psyche back then.
It was communism versus our form of government, and the Soviets
at that time were saying that they were now superior to us in technology
and research; and they were using that to attract a lot of students
to Moscow. Some countries who were nonaligned in either direction
were wavering toward going with the Soviets at that time, and becoming
more communistically-oriented, so it was a time of a lot of pressure.
Americans had just assumed that we were tops in research and technology
and then all at once, what happens? Well, we were trying to put
up a satellite, and we failed; and they tried, and they got one
up. And there was Sputnik going around and they were crowing internationally
about the fact that America was going to sleep each night beneath
a Soviet moon, as they put it. This was a great blow to our country,
and so we were just trying to catch up. So we didn't even put anything
up there in orbit until after they did, and then we were trying
to get a manned space program going. And there was Al Shepard waiting
to go up on the first Mercury flight, the Redstone flight, a suborbital
flight, up and down, and lo and behold a few weeks before Al was
to go, they orbited. Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth, and this was
a real blow. And so it took on the context of not just a space race,
just for the race aspects itself; but they were using what they
claimed as their superiority to sell their brand of government,
sell communism, and this was a real, live, thing to be considered
back in those days. And so when we came in, that was the basis at
that time; and so did we feel a lot of pressure? Yes, but we didn't
want to cut any corners, we wanted to be safe and all the engineers
did too, but NASA starting out back then in the manned program was
a tiny little group. I think we had maybe, oh, thirty or thirty-five
engineers, maybe forty, at Langley, at the NASA center there, and
then the seven of us, and secretarial help and things like that.
But most of the effort in the program was being directed from there,
and being contracted out to different manufacturers, so that's really
where we started when we were being selected in '58. And then they
announced the selection of the seven of us in April of '59.
When
it was announced, you and your colleagues experienced hero worship
like nothing this country had ever seen outside of its most revered
political figures and sports heroes probably. Did you feel like
a hero before anybody had ever flown? Did you feel as if a great
burden had been placed on you?
Well, the concept
of "hero" is in the eyes of the beholder, wherever they may be,
I guess; I don't wake up every morning thinking, I gotta be a hero
today or something like that, nor did any of us then or since. But,
we did have an awful lot of attention, that's for sure. I think
people saw a lot of this competition with the Soviets at that time
as sort of carrying the torch, as it were, for us getting back into
this thing. And we felt it very much; we wanted to be first because
we didn't want out nation to get behind, and so it was competitive
all right. And then of course, President Kennedy announced the Apollo
project, announced the lunar project, at that time. That really
sort of laid down the gauntlet as to who was gonna go, and the Russians
had a program to get to the moon, as we did; and we won that one.
I've always thought that sort of the turning point in our national
psyche was Al Shepard's flight; and then Gus and then mine; those
three flights together. We went into space, then I did the first
orbit, and I think there was an outpouring of feeling that people
had back in those days, just sort of inundated you almost. It was
a tremendous outpouring of national feeling, that we had accomplished
something, and it wasn't just me, it was whoever would've been on
that flight, in that capsule. He would have done the same thing,
we had a competition there. I think one of the best things that
ever happened was that President Eisenhower had decided when NASA
was formed out of the old NACA, which was the National Advisory
Committee for Aeronautics, and it was dissolved into NASA; he decided
it would be open for the whole world, to watch and to see, and we'd
share our information with the whole world. The Soviets had been
completely locked in, everything was secret, nobody knew what was
going on over there; even the intelligence community didn't know
much about what was going on, and so it was a real contrast between
the two programs. So when we had success, it was a success for all
the world to share right along in, and I think many nations of the
world really, not only appreciated that, they went along with it -- they were swayed by that. It was so dramatic because it was almost
like Hollywood designed the set: you have a booster there, and you
have night shots of it with klieg lights crossing in the sky, and
vapor coming off of the cold tank in the moist air down there in
Florida … it was just so dramatic it was like something Hollywood
dreamed up. And then along with that we had so many delays because
of equipment, one thing and another; everybody wanted to be safe.
I finally flew my flight on the eleventh scheduled date: that doesn't
mean I suited up for all those, but I actually did suited up four
times. Once it was canceled when I was on the way to the pad because
of weather, but the other three times I up in the capsule; four-and-a-half
hours one time, and almost six hours another time. And then during
the flight it had some problems, and we worked through that, with
the whole world watching, which they did. The whole thing was just
so naturally dramatic; it wasn't designed that way, but it just
was naturally that way. We finally went and made it and it was a
successful flight, and the whole world went right along with us
on that and I think that was sort of a change in our national psyche
in this country.
Let
me go back to February 20, 1962 for a moment. What was running through
your mind in the final seconds of the countdown and you hear Scott
Carpenter say, radio in your ear, "Godspeed, John Glenn"?
Well, there
are two answers to that; one is the flippant, more humorous answer,
and the other is more serious, but the flippant answer is, how do
you think you'd feel if you were on top of two million parts built
by the lowest bidder on a government contract? But it was more serious
than that, obviously, and we just wanted to get the thing going,
and I was looking forward to it. People think somehow that you're
under such great tension, that you almost look at this as a suicide
mission or something, and it wasn't that way at all. We had trained
hard, we'd worked with the engineers, we had a lot of confidence
in the equipment; even though the equipment wasn't as reliable then
as it might have been, but, uh, it's a time when you really want
to get going. You've trained a long time for it, you feel it's important,
and you're just looking forward to getting the thing going and getting
it off the pad.
When
you finally had the capsule lifted onto the deck of the USS Noa,
you get out and the world is changed suddenly, as well as the U.S.
space program. Anytime that day or that evening, did you think to
yourself, "Whoa, we finally did it; we caught them, we made the
impact we wanted"?
Well, the fact
that we finally were successful in orbital flight, I didn't have
to wait 'til the end of the day; I was happy when we got up, just
when I got into orbit. I had great confidence that this was going
to be a success, and so I thought about that many times during the
day, of course; but it was also a very busy day. I wasn't sitting
up there just contemplating psychological things or philosophical
ideas; there were a lot of things to be done and right from lift
off. If you listen to the old transcript, I had a regular sequence
of things on the oxygen, the different pressures, and so on. Also
a sequence on the instrument panel I was to read off, so they could
compare the telemetry signals, with the blockhouse. And so I was
very, very busy during the flight and there wasn't a whole lot of
free time. The early Mercury spacecraft did not even have a window
so you could see out, and we had talked about that; it was quite
a change in the spacecraft, but we finally convinced everybody and
the engineers finally agreed -- Kim Gilruth, who directed the program
then, agreed -- to put a window in right up over the head. So we
could look up and out the window … I think it was about fifteen
inches long and eleven inches across, something like that. You had
chances to look out and see what was out there, of course, and get
a few pictures as I went along, but there wasn't a whole lot of
time for that sort of thing because you were concentrating mainly
on things inside. Making sure that the whole thing was going well,
and there were some emergencies; the automatic control system went
out at the end of the first orbit so I controlled manually from
there on -- some things like that that kept me very busy.
After
you're back home, one would have thought that you would have been
reassigned again, but that didn't happen. Give us a flavor of what
transpired that prevented you from flying again, setting the stage
for your distinguished career in the Senate.
Well, I didn't
know what the situation was at the time, but I went in to see Kim
Gilruth, I wanted to be back on flight rotation again, and he said,
well, Headquarters didn't want me to do that. And that's when Jim
Webb was the Administrator of NASA at that time, and Hugh Dryden
was the deputy up there, and Headquarters didn't want me to fly
again, not right away. And so OK, I'd go back in a month or so later
and I'd ask Kim again about getting back on flight rotation and
I'd get the same answer again -- well, Headquarters didn't want that
quite yet. And he wanted me to go into some areas of management
of training, which I didn't really want to do at that time. So this
went of for about a year-and-a-half, and he couldn't give me any
indication as to when this might be reversed, and so I finally decided
to go do some other things. I didn't know until, I think it was
in one of the President Kennedy biographies, some years later, that
it said he had actually indicated to NASA and to Jim Webb that he'd
just as soon I was not used again, at least not for a while. And
I don't know whether it was because of the political fallout if
something would happen to me or what, but I didn't know that at
the time. So I went on to other things.
All
those years did you carry the same burning desire to get back up
one more time? Discuss for a moment, if you would, the trigger,
finally, that enabled you to enter into serious discussions with
NASA about flying again.
I always wanted
to go back up again, but as the years went by I thought that those
hopes had gone glimmering a long time ago. But I always thought
it would be good to go up again. Well, how this present assignment
came about started back about almost four years ago. And every year
the Senate debates the NASA budget, and I'm always very much involved
with that and take part in it and prepare for it. And I noted in
some of my preparation that there had been fifty-some changes in
the astronauts' bodies in space, and some were important, some were
minor, but there were fifty-some changes. This was published in
one of the books on physiology and medicine that some of the NASA
doctors had put together; Dr. Nicogossian, Pool, and Huntoon. In
looking through that, it occurred to me that some of the same changes
occur as part of the natural process of aging right here on Earth:
osteoporosis, the body's immune system, muscle mass and strength,
balance, orthostatic tolerance, and the ability of the body to keep
blood in the proper part of the body to keep the brain operating
properly. There are about ten different changes like that that I
thought were very, very similar. So I looked in the Merck Geri,
you know every doctor's office has it, one of these Merck Manuals,
and about a dozen years ago they started putting out one that's
called the Merck Manual on Geriatrics. Somebody had sent me a copy,
and so one weekend I looked through the index and found a chart
with all these things; special effects of aging on certain things,
and compared those with the NASA list and came up with about a dozen
areas that I thought should be looked into. I talked to some of
the NASA doctors, Dr. Nicogossian and Vernikos, Joan Vernikos, and
some of those people, and they had already noted some of these things
also. I also talked to the people out in the National Institute
of Aging and they were very interested in this. They had noted some
of the same things, and they had thought there might be some correlation
there we could look at, between aging and what happens to the younger
astronauts. They had a couple of conferences and meetings then over
a year in which they called in some of their scientists there in
Washington, which the NASA doctors attended also, to discuss whether
it might be worthwhile to send somebody older up, someone in their
mid-seventies. They were the ones that suggested the general idea -- studying someone who had had some of these changes in their body
occur as a natural part of the aging process, send someone up and
see. Say if I went up, would I be immune then, basically, from those
changes that the younger astronauts experience? If, that would occur,
why? Would it affect me more? If so, why? When you come back to
Earth, what's the rate of recovery? If there's a different rate
of recovery between someone my age and the younger astronauts, why
does that occur? In other words, what you're tryin' to find out
is what within the human body turns these systems on and off. If
we can learn some things like that, we not only can do a lot to
take away some of the frailties of old age, but also help the astronauts
up there now that have these things effect them in space. And as
they go on for longer and longer spaceflights, these kinds of things
are going to be much more important to the younger astronaut population.
So they were interested enough to approach the Administrator, Dan
Goldin, in June of '96, and I said "Somebody oughta be looking into
these things, and whether it's me or not, somebody should, and I'd
like to be the one, obviously." His response was well, number one,
it had to make sense from a science standpoint, we didn't have the
luxury of having seats just for people to go joy-riding in space
yet … it may come to pass someday but we don't have that yet. He
put this out for peer review, to scientists that they'd contacted
all over the country. And that went on for almost a year. Now this
was in addition to the conferences that the National Institute of
Aging had had. And then, number two, if I was to be considered,
I'd have to pass every physical that anybody else passes to go into
space. And so this all worked out, and the NASA scientists and the
people they consulted thought this would be worthwhile, and selected
this in competition with other programs that might occupy the same
space on the orbiter. And so in January of this year it was announced.
That's a long explanation to how we got here, but that basically
is it.
And
when it was finally announced, when you got the phone call that
said you're gonna fly in space again, what was your reaction to
it all?
Well, I was
quite elated because I'd hoped this would come through, and who
would ever have thought age becomes an advantage in this particular
investigation instead of a disadvantage? So I'm very glad to be
here and have been working very hard on the training. We in the
Senate normally go for about three to five weeks, then we have a
week or ten days or two weeks where people are back in their states
or wherever, and I've used those periods, mainly this year, to be
here in Houston or over at the Cape training with the crew that
I've been assigned to. And all this month of August, of course,
the Senate is out of session, so I'll be here. I'm here all during
this month and then we will go out of session in very early October,
and I'll be here training continually from that time on.
And,
of course, you and your crewmates are training for a very complex
mission with a tough timeline. Give us a sense of how complex, how
crowded this flight is going to be.
You mentioned
the crew: this is about as a good a bunch of people as you could
ever get together; these are just very brilliant people, they really
are, and I'm just honored to be a part of them. Let me digress just
a moment here, because things have changed so much since the early
days. Back when I went up, Al Shepard, Gus, and the rest of the
seven, the doctors predicted some dire things back then. Would your
eyeballs change shape, for instance. In the spacecraft, Friendship
7, that's in the Smithsonian, if you look up at the upper part of
the instrument panel, the little eye chart is still up there with
the little lines on it. I was to read that thing every twenty minutes
during flight: some doctors predicted your eyes might change shape
enough that you wouldn't have enough vision to read the instrument
panel properly. Some doctors predicted that when fluid in the inner
ear no longer was held in place as solidly by gravity it might move
more randomly about and you'd get uncontrollable nausea and vertigo.
And could you swallow, they didn't know whether you could swallow
properly or not, so we took food along. Those were the levels of
things that we were trying to put to rest at that time, so we would
know how to design future spacecraft. Well through the years this
has come up to now, where as you say, we have literally a mass of
scientific experiments on this one flight. I don't know whether
this will be the most science-rich flight that's ever gone up or
not, but it's got to be one of the top ones. I think at last count
we had eighty-three different projects on this one flight, and I'll
be involved directly with some of those, of course, and I'll be
backing-up other people, doing some of the things they're assigned
to, also. But we've gone from back in those days where we were just
tryin' to find out if we can do it, to now where these flights are
literally out on the cutting edge of science, doing things that
benefit directly, or have the potential of being of enormous benefit,
to everybody right here on Earth. And that's what the space program's
all about. Money isn't spent out there in space, it's spent right
here on the ground and benefits of what we learn in space in this
new laboratory come back to right here on Earth. We have protein
crystal growth where you can grow these protein crystals up there
of a larger size and purity than you can do here on Earth. The drug
companies are doing research on this right now along with NASA,
to design new designer medicines and drugs to hit specific diseases
and treat certain human difficulties. There are a whole host of
things like this, some are on every flight as continuing research,
and every flight has some new things on it too that will be of benefit
to people right here.
Do
you feel, not only because of your presence on board, that STS-95
is the link that ties together the origins of human spaceflight
with the stepping-off point to the future, and specifically the
International Space Station?
Well, I think
it is a stepping-off point, and everyone's proud that their flight
is a building block up to the next one, but this really is the final
step. This is the final flight here before we really start building
the space station, the next flight up. We're going to have sixteen
different countries involved with this thing, and see how much better
we are cooperating with people and trying to work together internationally
than in our past, with our usual international animosities that
we've lived with for too long. It's going to be a great scientific
end; not only an endeavor but an adventure. And from that time on
most of the orbiter flights will be devoted to taking up equipment
and the people to work and assemble the station. It'll be building
for some time, and then after it becomes occupied the orbiter will
be used to take people and equipment back and forth and keep it
supplied; so it doesn't get put in the barn anytime soon, it becomes
even more busy.
And
so here you are about to board a spacecraft on a flight that bridges
the time capsule, if you will, from the time that you flew first,
when beating the Soviet Union was a political imperative, to now,
being the curtain call for all of the missions in which the Russians
will be an integral partner. How do you feel about that, the irony
of it all?
It is ironic
and I've thought a lot about that. The fact that we were in such
competition at that time and now here we have the Russians training
with us right here in Houston, and going up on some of our flights;
and our people going up on the Mir, and training over in Russia.
It's much better that we're working together now than just conducting
international competition. The things that come out of this, that
are being developed in this new laboratory in space, let's us move
ahead, sharing the technology and knowledge. Things like the protein
crystal growth, or a super light-weight aerogel insulator, plant
growth differences that may apply to rice or wheat culture, or the
biological research that some day may help with spinal column injuries.
So we're really doing some far out type research here … that's a
horrible pun, I guess, but things like this are very, very exciting.
Give
us a glimpse into the geriatrics studies in particular, how you
will play a role and what are you going to look like up on orbit
with all this stuff hanging off of you?
Well first
let me talk about Protein Turnover, and that is where muscles degrade
somewhat. They're not quite sure exactly why in some of these areas;
it may have to do with a stress hormone, maybe other reasons. What
happens with the elderly to anyone over about 65, muscle strength,
even if you keep exercising, that muscle strength and mass seems
to go downhill. So the muscle studies that are being done on this
flight involve an injection into my arm of some isotopes, and then
we'll take multiple blood and urine samples over the next twenty-four
to thirty-six hour period, and these will be analyzed in the hopes
of telling what caused the muscle breakdown. This research becomes
potentially very valuable to not only the elderly, but to the astronauts
who will experience longer-term flight which'll be possible on the
International Space Station. Another important one is the Sleep
experiment. We have some thirty-four-million Americans over the
age of 65 right now, and that's due to triple over the next fifty
years. By the year 2050 we're supposed to have right at a hundred-million
people over 65, the fastest-growing segment in our population are
those 85 and up, and this same trend is going on all over the world.
Now, the reason I bring those figures out is because about half
the people over 65 have some sleep problems, and they estimate that
about a third of those people over 65 have very major sleep problems,
to the point that it interferes with their day activity … sometimes
their lives are actually shortened because of this. So, they've
had sleep experiments on some of the previous flights and that'll
be continued on this flight; two of us on this flight will be going
through sleep experiments. Now this sounds very simple but it's
not. It's a way of measuring all of your brain waves, your EKG,
your heart and circulatory system, your respiration, and your body
core temperature; all of this will be monitored and registered.
When I'm instrumented for this with what they call a head net, I
think I'll have twenty-one different leads coming out of my body.
In fact, as we're talking this morning, I just came from having
spent a night with all this rig on and I still have the actigraph
on and the recording of the body core temperature. I'm still going
through on a twenty-four-hour cycle even as we're sitting here talking.
Now what they'll do in this experiment will not only measure all
of these different functions, but they will also be giving us either
different levels of melatonin or a placebo -- and I won't know what
I'm getting. I just take a pill, and we will study the body's natural
production of melatonin, which is what helps put you to sleep at
night on a regular, daily cycle. This'll be the first time that
this has really been studied on anyone in the age group where this
is really a major problem.
John,
you're in phenomenal shape, but you're 77 years old; do you have
any concerns about how you'll fare during any aspect of this flight,
especially the powered flight to orbit?
No, not at
all. In fact, I'm not concerned about that. One of the first things
they checked me out on when I came down here for my first trip was
to go over to San Antonio and do the centrifuge. The way the shuttle
or the way the orbiter is designed, it travels at lower G, lower
gravity levels, than we used back when we were just trying to go
into space; that's the way it had to be. Don't forget these eighty-three
different experiments we have on board, all of the equipment has
to be designed to go along and not break. And so you don't want
to design equipment that has to withstand eight or nine or ten G's;
it's just not necessary. What we do on spaceflights now is you have
a longer burning period to get you into orbit. It takes a longer
time to get there, over eight minutes, almost eight-and-a-half minutes,
where we used to get there in just over five. But obviously, with
the longer burn time you can do that and get into orbit at a lower
G level along the way. Back in the Mercury days we got up just below
eight G's at insertion into orbit, and re-entry was about eight
G; eight times gravity. But your G is taken into your chest like
this, like you're lying on your back going into orbit; it isn't
like sitting up in a fighter airplane, where the blood drains out
of your head. The flight now, during insertion into orbit you get
up to about three G's maximum, and then returning from orbit you
only have about two G's and that's quite tolerable. That won't be
any problem at all, I don't think. As far as my condition goes,
I've passed every physical, and have remained in pretty good health
most of my life … my parents have pretty good genes, I guess, from
a health standpoint. So I'm not concerned about being able to take
the rigors of space, physically; I think that'll be something I'll
be able to do quite well.
With
the eyes of the world focused in on you and this mission, for obvious
reasons, do you feel any personal pressure to perform or is this
John Glenn, the old Marine fighter pilot, back in a spacesuit, going
back up again?
Well, I suppose
there's some pressure but, uh, pressure's never been something that
dominated what I do. There is a lot of attention on this, and it's
sort of been surprising to me. I would be lying if I didn't say
I'm conscious of it, of course I'm conscious of it. I thought when
the announcement was originally made back in January, it'd be a
flurry of press interest and I thought it would go down, and then
as we got closer to flight there might be a little more interest.
But I've been surprised at the continuing level of interest in the
flight … and I won't duck it, because I'm going back up again. I've
tried to sort of disembody myself and look at me from outside and
say why is this occurring. And I think a lot of it is, we talked
a little while ago, about those days back when there was a pressure,
and boy this was sort of a change in national psyche, during the
Mercury program. And anybody's who's around 50 or over now probably
remembers those days. And it's sort of a harkening back to the old
days, I guess … it was very emotional back then. You know, we'd
go places back then, the seven astronauts, we'd be in a parade or
be at some sort of a dinner or something and people'd be crying.
They just felt so strongly about it, and I think a lot of people
remember. I guess this is maybe a wave of nostalgia that we've triggered
off this time … didn't design it that way but that's the way it
seems to be working out. But the important thing is what we're doing
up there; it's not just a wave of nostalgia, and if this can encourage
older people to be more active and to stay more active, well then
so be it, but that wasn't the basic reason why I'm going up again.
I think many people are living healthy lives to an older age and
can be more active and productive than they've ever been before,
than ever in history. In the days of the Caesars the average age
was just in the upper 20s. And then, through all those centuries,
we got to the first of this century, and when we came into the 1900's
the average age was only in the upper 40s. And all at once within
this century in which we have lived, all at once the age curve has
just taken off and gone straight up in the air. One of these days
the average age will be in the 80s, both men and women pretty soon,
we're close to it right now. Well, along with that increase has
come a lot of problems, too. This is an area of research that can
extend life and make it more enjoyable, for people all over the
world. Those are some of the kinds of things that we're looking
at in space flight today and this laboratory in space; it's exciting,
and I'm just glad to be back and be a part of it.
What
was it that got you interested in wanting to become an astronaut
forty years ago?
My dad wasn't
a pilot, but one time we were watching a pilot that was taking people
up for rides, and it was an old Waco plane with an open cockpit -- he flew in the front and my dad and I sat side by side in the
little seat in the back, and I was maybe eight or nine years old
I guess. I'd never been up in an airplane at that time, and he went
up and circled around Cambridge, Ohio, which is where I was born;
we lived right near there. I was fascinated with flying from then
on, and I built model airplanes as a kid. Not the ones that kids
buy today, plastic and snap together, but the ones where you really
built them; where you carved out the little pieces of balsa and
you glued them in place and really put the whole structure together.
And the rubber band motor you'd wind up and fly it and it'd crash
and I'd put it back together again and fly again. Then when I was
in college there was a chance to get your pilot's license with a
program called the Civilian Pilot Training; CPT, just prior to World
War II. You could take that and get your private pilot's license
and get physics credits in college as well, and that was too good
to miss. You were studying aerodynamics, and engines and everything,
and so you got college physics credit for it. So just prior to World
War II I had my private pilot's license and had fifty or sixty hours
in the little Taylorcraft airplane, and some in a Cub I had gotten
also. Then Pearl Harbor occurred, and I left college in the middle
of my junior year and went into military flight training, and then
was in the Marine Corps as a fighter pilot for twenty-three years.
I love flying and stuck with it. When I went through test pilot
training and I was doing that duty for about three-and-a-half years,
after I was in the Korean War, and just as I was coming out of that
flight training, test pilot work, was when the space program was
starting. They were looking for volunteers, and that's when I volunteered
and was fortunate enough to be selected. That was sort of the progression
of how I got into aviation and into the space program.
What
do you think is going to be going through your mind during the final
seconds before launch? Are you going to look up and say "Al, Gus,
Deke -- this one's for you," or what do you think will be running
through your mind?
Well, there'll
be philosophical thoughts like that, I'm sure, and should be, because
it'll be a big event. But most of what you'll be concentrating on
will be the business at hand; what happens during launch, the procedures
there that we all have to follow. You are alert, keyed up to everything
that's going on, you'll be listening to Curt as the flight Commander
and Steve Lindsey as the Pilot and what they're doing and what they're
saying. Keeping up with each part of the mission as it goes, looking
forward to just being up there and planning exactly what happens
when you hit zero G, because at that time it gets to be very, very
busy. Each person has a timeline in which their activities are charted
all through the whole nine days of this flight, and there's not
much time off; once you hit zero G, that timeline really starts.
And once you get out of the suit and into your more comfortable
clothes, which you do the first thing you're up there, you're set
to go to work, and everybody has their job assignments. But you
won't be so concentrated you don't really think of the historical
significance of it too; I'll be aware of that, representing a lot
of things for a lot of people -- we all will. If I had my way, every
mission would get the same kind of attention that I got on Project
Mercury back in those days, because I think every crew deserves
that kind of attention. But we're accustomed to the "new" in this
country and we get used to it and we don't pay that much attention
to subsequent flights, which we should. So if this flight can help
rekindle some of that a little bit, some of the feeling about the
importance of what we're doing here, then I welcome the attention.
You know people have looked up for tens of thousands of years and
wondered what was up there; in our lifetime we're going up there,
and using this new laboratory of space in our own lifetimes, right
now. What a fortunate time we are in, and what a great time in history
to be around when we can participate in things like this. So during
launch you won't be sitting back contemplating all the affairs of
nations and so on, I suppose you'll be concentrating more on exactly
what's going on there at the moment, and what your responsibilities
are, and what they're going to be in a few minutes once you get
up there. But there's going to be time during the mission when our
timeline is caught up and where we have a few minutes off to do
a lot of looking out of the window. To see things that I experienced
on a limited basis back then with my flight that was a little under
five hours, three orbits; this'll be about a hundred and forty-four
orbits in nine days, and I'm looking forward to it.
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