Failure Is Not an Option Read online

  The generation of controllers who grew up at the remotesites and were now in Mercury Control were about to be tested—and win their spurs.

  The launch came off without a hitch and Scott Carpenter became the second American in orbit. His mission, like John Glenn’s, would be three orbits. The first orbit went by the book; the controllers and teams were sharp. The training program had paid off in solid data flow, and the Teletype messages told the complete story of each site pass. Class 101 was doing well, damned well.

  Except for a minor variation in his suit temperature, Scott reported no disorientation as he moved through the visual observations, and was thoroughly enjoying the zero gravity environment. During the sunrise and sunset periods, he described the same “firefly” phenomenon reported by John Glenn on his flight and tried to determine the source of this phenomenon.

  Each flight, however, would present us with a new headache. Starting at the Canary Islands on the second orbit, Carpenter indicated that his out-the-window attitude did not agree with his instruments. The Teletype messages I received from the African, Australian, and Hawaii sites indicated errors between the horizon sensor and capsule pitch attitude.

  Carpenter was advised to realign his gyros over the Canary Islands and then attempt to correlate his readings with Skinny Lewis’s data over Zanzibar. The site data indicated significant errors.

  Horizon sensors detect the difference in infrared radiation between space and Earth. The sensors provide signals to update the gyros that control the pitch and roll, and Aurora 7’s pitch sensor was varying by as much as plus 50 to minus 20 degrees. Carpenter was the only one who could put all of the pieces together by comparing his instrument readings with the spacecraft periscope and the view of the horizon from the capsule window. If the readings were off, like a pilot in an aircraft, he could realign the gyros to the correct position.

  The Mercury capsule design provided the astronaut with two attitude control systems—an automatic system containing 12 thrusters and 32 pounds of fuel (hydrogen peroxide), and a less capable manual system with 6 thrusters and 23 pounds of fuel. In Mercury control, Arnie Aldrich was watching the drain of fuel from the tanks. Whether on the manual or automatic attitude control system, the high usage continued and, given the infrequent site contacts with the spacecraft, Aldrich was unable to identify the cause. Carpenter was repeatedly advised to conserve fuel by turning off all control and going into drifting flight. At the start of the third and final orbit the propellants were down to 45 percent remaining in both systems. Kraft’s concern at this time was not the fuel level as much as the control techniques used by Carpenter. Every time he maneuvered the capsule the fuel quantities plummeted. If the trend we were observing continued, Carpenter would run out of attitude control fuel before reentry. Scott was again told to go to drifting flight and conserve his fuel for retrofire and entry. The site reports across Africa and Australia indicated that the fuel usage had stopped.

  The news from Hawaii on the final orbit was not good. Their job was to get Carpenter into retro attitude and complete the pre-retro checklist. As Carpenter maneuvered the spacecraft into deorbit attitude with the automatic control system, the controllers were alarmed by the system’s rate of fuel usage. We didn’t have the full picture back at the Cape; only Hawaii could look at the telemetry and communicate with Carpenter at the same time.

  We could hear that he was running behind in his preparations for deorbit and, given the low fuel level, we had to bring him home quickly. Then came more bad news. The automatic attitude control system was not functioning properly; Carpenter had to go to manual while the fuel continued to bleed away. With three minutes of contact remaining between Hawaii and the spacecraft, and five minutes left to complete the retrofire checklist, it was a horse race to get into deorbiting attitude if we were to land anywhere near the planned splashdown point.

  Each of the Mercury astronauts was made of the right stuff, but all were vastly different. While others would be making last compulsively detailed checks on the spacecraft, Scott might be found sitting on the beach, strumming a guitar. What I knew for sure at this point was that we had an astronaut in trouble, who was way behind the power curve, and if he wasn’t careful he was going to die. Whatever the problem, the real-time California tracking station pass would determine if Scotty lived or died.

  (“Real time” is a term used when the capsule is electronically in view of a tracking station. It generally stretches from horizon to horizon as the station antennas track the capsule orbit. The initial contact is called acquisition [ACQ] and real time ends at loss of signal [LOS]. At the low orbital altitudes [between 100 and 200 miles] of the Mercury capsule, the real-time period could range from seconds up to eight minutes. To many controllers it seemed a lifetime.)

  As Hawaii was losing the signal from the spacecraft, acting on sheer hope (and maybe a bit of prayer) they continued to read out the checklist. Their hope was rewarded when, well after Scott had passed over the horizon, he contacted Hawaii and told them that he had copied all of their message on the deorbit checklist.

  For the first time in what seemed like hours, the controllers at the Cape took a deep breath, wondering what the hell was going to happen next.

  Kraft leaned over and punched up the loop to California. “California CapCom, have you been tracking this?” Alan Shepard responded tersely, “Rog, Chris.” Shepard and Ted White had been listening to the Hawaii pass and knew what they needed to do. There was nothing we could say or do at the control center; it was now up to the California team to get him down.

  Sixty seconds after Hawaii lost the signal, Shepard made his first call from the California site. “Seven, this is CapCom, are you in retro attitude?” Carpenter replied, “Yes, but I don’t have agreement with the window, Al. I think I’m going to have to do it manually, with the window and the scope.”

  Ted White, the systems monitor, scanned the console meters for the attitude indications and exclaimed to Shepard, “Dammit, Al, if he is in retro attitude his gyros are way off. I don’t think he ever did a gyro alignment. His pitch gyro is off by at least 25 degrees.”

  Reaching forward, Ted picked up a grease pencil and slashed a line on each of his meters at the current indication he believed represented the retro pitch attitude of minus 34 degrees, zero yaw. Leaning toward Shepard, he pointed at his meters, saying, “He’s about out of manual fuel, automatic is about 35 percent. Attitude is okay in pitch . . . okay, but he’s still moving in yaw.”

  Knowing he had to get Carpenter down, Shepard nodded, gave a thirty-second mark, and then began the countdown to retro sequence, “. . . six, five, four, three, two, one, MARK!” Carpenter confirmed, “Retro sequence Green.” Scott made the final attitude check by looking out his window. White checked his meters; Aurora 7 was still moving. Retrofire was designed to be accomplished by the automatic attitude control system. The sequence began but immediately hung up.

  Shepard had to pack all his verbal instructions to Carpenter into the next half minute to hit the planned retrofire time: “Try the automatic system, quickly. If your gyros are off, you will have to bypass the attitude interlock.” After hearing Scott confirm, “Gyros off,” Alan continued, “Bypass attitude and use manual.”

  At the Cape we heard Carpenter indicate he had fired all three rockets. “I had to punch them off manually,” he said, “and I have a bit of smoke in the capsule.” Ted White confirmed that the retros were firing, but the capsule was well out of attitude in yaw. Seconds later, it seemed to tumble.

  Retrofire was only three seconds late, but Llewellyn’s concern was the attitude. If Carpenter was far enough out in yaw or pitch, he would be stuck in orbit with no way home. One way or another, the die was now cast. Carpenter reported, “I think the attitudes held well, Al. I think they were good. I can’t tell you what was wrong about them since the gyros were not quite right.”

  Shepard glanced at the fuel quantity meters on White’s console; the manual fuel was reading zero. Less tha
n 20 percent of the fuel remained in the malfunctioning automatic system. Al knew it was going to be close.

  Carpenter said, “I’m using fly-by-wire to stop tumbling. I’m out of manual fuel, Al.” Shepard, speaking with deliberate calmness, pronouncing each word slowly and distinctly, responded, “You’ve got plenty of time. Take your time on fly-by-wire to get into reentry attitude.” If the capsule ran out of fuel before getting into the correct attitude, it could enter the atmosphere nose forward and burn up during entry.

  Whatever difficulty Scott was in, he could hardly have found himself in better hands. Shepard, in the opinion of just about everyone, was the most unflappable of all the astronauts. The man at his side, Ted White, was one of the pioneering group of Philco technical reps who had been hired as monitors for the Mercury system. He had no peer. He had dedicated himself to acquiring experience in remote site operation, even if it required him to volunteer for the ships and spend weeks at sea.

  Llewellyn, now faced with his first emergency as a retro controller, continued to talk to White to get the specific attitude. “It looked like he was okay in pitch,” White explained, “but he was all over the sky in yaw. I thought we lost him when he started to tumble. I’ll get you more data after the pass.”

  Llewellyn alerted the recovery teams that the capsule would land long, and searched for data that would give him a better estimate. Shepard continued coaching Carpenter: “You have plenty of time, about seven minutes until .05G, so take it slow and easy.”

  At Mercury Control, we heard Carpenter’s response, “Roger. Okay, I can make out very, very small farmland . . . pastureland below. I see individual fields, rivers, lakes, roads, I think. I’ll get back to reentry attitude now.”

  Shepard’s response was all business. “Recommend you get as close to reentry attitude as you can, using as little fuel as possible, and stand by on fly-by-wire until rates [capsule motions] develop, over.”

  Every controller knew it was going to be damn close. If Scotty had not fired the retros in the correct attitude, instead of coming down in the landing zone he’d be stuck in a slowly decaying orbit, circling for a few hours until his power and oxygen ran out.

  With the second critical reentry facing him, Kraft was a study in controlled fury. The mission had been close to perfect until these last few minutes and now everything was going to hell. Yelling over to Grissom, the Cape CapCom, Kraft said: “Dammit, Gus, keep his [Carpenter’s] mind on the job. I think he’s delirious.”

  I was standing at the console next to Kraft. There was not much we could do except try to keep Scotty focused on the very few remaining things that would keep him alive, nursing the last few drops of attitude control fuel and maintaining reentry attitude. In the years to come I would often feel the absolute frustration at being helpless during the blackout that concludes every mission. It is like watching your wife in labor . . . there is nothing you can do except hold her hand and pray that all goes well.

  Llewellyn looked like a guy juggling raw eggs, trying to interpret Ted White’s report and coordinate the recovery forces and radar trackers.

  For his first mission he had drawn a big one. Using high school geometry, and after consulting a plot under the plexiglass cover on his console, John said: “Chris, with the California data I think we’re going to be a couple hundred miles long. We’ll get a good hack when we see what time he enters blackout.”

  Shepard chimed in: “This is California. We’re losing you now. Stand by for the Cape.”

  After contact three minutes later, Grissom’s dialogue with Scott centered on the fuel status and the few remaining checklist items. Aldrich said quietly, “Chris, he’s down to 15 percent on auto fuel, the manual tank is empty.” After relaying the recovery area weather, Grissom reminded Scott of the impending blackout. The voice loop exchanges were crisp, but the overall mood in Mercury Control was somber as Scotty entered blackout. In the next few minutes, America might lose an astronaut.

  At the Mercury Control loss of signal, Llewellyn called Kraft, “Flight, we were about thirty seconds late going into the blackout. We’re long. I’ll give you a better hack in a few minutes.”

  Within minutes, Llewellyn had the first landing prediction: “Flight, I’ve got an impact point 250 miles downrange from the predicted target. I have good agreement with all of my tracking radars. This is the best impact point we will get. I’m passing it on to Recovery.”

  Bob Thompson, the recovery operations chief, called, indicating that an Air Rescue Service twin engine amphibious aircraft had been launched from Puerto Rico and was flying to the new landing point north of the Virgin Islands.

  The wait was agonizing, as it had been on John Glenn’s reentry. I muttered a silent prayer to St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, and it seemed everyone was on his second cigarette during blackout. Ten minutes later, we got our first call from Aurora 7. “I’m on the main chute at 5,000. Status is good.” It was if ten tons had been lifted off our backs. We felt like standing and cheering, but that didn’t happen in Kraft’s control room, only in the movies. Chris’s smile was more like the grimace of one receiving a last-minute reprieve from the guillotine. He was not happy about the ending of his second manned orbital mission. A relieved Grissom advised Carpenter, “Your landing point is over 200 miles long. We will jump Air Rescue personnel to you in about an hour.”

  For nearly thirty minutes after the landing the press was in a panic, thinking an astronaut had been lost in space, or dropped into a watery grave. When the recovery helicopters got to him, a typically laid-back

  Scott Carpenter was described as quite comfortable in his raft, even a bit irritated because they had interrupted his contemplation. He was eating a candy bar.

  In the rescue process Scott was quoted as saying, “I didn’t know where I was and they [Mercury Control] didn’t, either.” Those were fighting words to a new young RETRO who prided himself on perfection in the emerging art of retrofire control.

  “Bullshit,” Llewellyn exclaimed. “The SOB is damned lucky to be alive.”

  Carpenter’s words would often be remembered. At beer parties, or during debriefings, if we wanted to get John Llewellyn to tell the story of Aurora 7 and his first mission as RETRO, we would stand and say, “I didn’t know where I was and they didn’t, either.” And the story would commence. Later, Scott Carpenter became entranced by the mysteries of the sea. He lived and worked on the ocean floor for periods of thirty and forty-five days, developing techniques and systems for undersea operations. He retired from NASA in 1967 and was assigned by the Navy to the deep-submergence-systems project.

  During mission debriefing, Scott said simply, “I think the reason I got behind at retrofire was because approaching Hawaii at dawn on the third orbit I discovered the source of the fireflies. I took out the camera and tried to get some pictures. I felt that I had time to get that taken care of and prepare for retrofire properly, but time just slipped away.”

  The“fireflies” reported onGlenn’s andCarpenter’s missions were simply frozen droplets of water from the evaporators used to cool the cabin and space suits. They were most noticeable at sunrise on each orbit.

  Scotty’s mission was close, too damn close. A crewman distracted and behind in the flight plan is a risk to the mission and himself. A major component of the ground team’s responsibility is to provide a check on the crew. The ground had waited too long in addressing the fuel status and should have been more forceful in getting on with the checklists. I also thought we started too early in introducing such scientific experiments as a balloon drag experiment, zero-gravity fluid studies, and photographic observations. Once again, we were lucky—but luck has no business in spaceflight.

  June 1962

  During these times of endless hours and heavy stress, keeping a marriage intact was no small achievement. I couldn’t have done it without an extraordinary wife. Our newest daughter, Joan, was now almost a year old as we packed up and joined the caravan moving west. As we rol
led into Flight Controller Alley in Houston I knew that while the controllers faced many tests, we, too, had “the right stuff ” for spaceflight.

  The nature of our work made us develop strong loyalties to each other. Most of us were in our late twenties and early thirties. Outside of wartime, I do not believe that young people had ever been given responsibilities so heavy or historic. We were in jobs that appealed to the adventurer, dreamer, and Foreign Legionnaire in each of us. Over half of the original members of the Space Task Group elected to leave flight operations in the first two years. Many had come from working in aeronautics at Langley and wanted to get back to the airplane business; others did not want to relocate to Houston from Virginia. There were some who handled one or two missions, but the responsibility scared the hell out of them and they left. But those who stayed with the program grew in experience and judgment—and provided the hard-core leadership for Gemini and Apollo.

  With the selection of the second astronaut group in September 1962, it was obvious that we were approaching the end of the series of missions that made up the Mercury program. While waiting for the construction of our new offices, the Flight Control Division was located in a sporting goods warehouse on the main freeway between Houston and Galveston. The remaining offices of the Manned Spacecraft Center were scattered at eleven other locations, including a bottling plant, a TV station, a bank, and an electric fan company.