Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program (13 page)

Cliff and Glynn

We knew there was a site selection team formed to look for a permanent location for STG, as it was on its way to becoming the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC). I was happy that we were going to move from Virginia, because, although it was home to many of the men I worked with, I was not wild about it and looked forward to the change. The decision was made and announced in December 1961 that we were moving to Houston, Texas and to a particular area of Houston around Clear Lake, twenty miles south of Houston on I-45.

Immediately prior to this announcement, the area had been hit by Hurricane Carla. Marilyn was active in some of the volunteer efforts to collect and ship supplies to the “poor” people in Houston. Little did we know that we would soon be living there. We all had many questions about it and felt that we knew little about Texas except for the movie portrayals of the state.

After MA-7, I drove our ’58 Chevy convertible, with no air conditioning, to Houston, while Marilyn and our daughter Jenny enjoyed their last visit for a while with her parents. As I was getting closer to Texas, I began to think of those movies, John Wayne – great big steaks and cold beer. And I couldn’t wait to get to a Texas town to enjoy some of that fare. However, as I ordered my first steak in Texas, I found out about the dreaded “dry county.” Yes, it meant you could not buy a beer to have with your steak, or anything else alcoholic for that matter in that county. I wondered what John Wayne would think about that.

I went on to Houston, and eventually got to a rental home in Deer Park. Our friends, the Tindalls, had rented this home, and gave us the key to stay there until they arrived later. This was the last part of June, and was my first experience with the wonderful heat and humidity so well renowned in Houston. In due course, Marilyn and Jenny, now seventeen months, were due to arrive in Houston at Hobby Airport. At this time, Marilyn was almost eight months pregnant with our second child. She had made matching outfits for herself and Jenny for this auspicious trip. Airports in the sixties did not have long tunnels that now permit people to leave the plane and remain in at least some air conditioning. In those days, exit from the plane was accomplished with a set of stairs that are rolled over to the plane, secured in place, so that the plane door opens at the top of the stairs. Other people came off and I was just inside the door watching for Marilyn. It was about 3 p.m. and when she showed up at the door of the airplane holding Jenny’s hand, the heat and humidity hit her “face-on.” Marilyn staggered back into the airplane as if the wall of heat was assaulting her.

That was her welcoming moment to Houston, and I’m sure she wondered what she was doing here. Off we went, in our car without air conditioning, and we stayed in the Tindall rental house for a couple of weeks, which also had no A/C. When I got home from work, I often found Marilyn and Jenny in the tub, sometimes with ice cubes on special occasions.

Shortly after arrival, the city sponsored a welcoming event in the Houston Coliseum in downtown. This was the original site of what is now the Houston Rodeo currently housed in Reliant Center. This started with a parade, where the Mercury astronauts and much of the brass of MSC were paraded through town. It was a fantastic reception. In the Coliseum, there was all kind of entertainment including bands, and even a family version show by a well-known stripper named Sally Rand. Houstonians were uniformly dressed in cowboy boots, big buckles, and cowboy hats. They were genuinely happy to have us here in Houston, and made sure that we had all the beer and barbecue that we could handle. This was an amazing change from the locals in Virginia. The people of Houston seemed to love everything about the idea of space and the fact that we were moving into their community. We could not have imagined a more friendly welcome.

As the time for the Tindalls’ move to Houston approached, we found an apartment, in a unit called the Chateau. It was South of 610 and a little west of the Gulf freeway.

We moved in, just in time for the birth of our second child, Glynn, Jr. born August 14, 1962. Our offices were close by on the Gulf Freeway, and I started in the Houston Petroleum Center at first. At about this time, there was some reorganizing and, in July of 1962, I became a section head in Tec’s Mission Control Center branch, with one person in the section, Cliff Charlesworth.

Just days before Glynn, Jr. was born, the Russians launched another space first. Vostok-3 flew into orbit on August eleventh, followed by Vostok-4 on the next day. The two cosmonauts, Nicolayev and Popovich flew by each other, with the closest approach being three point two miles. At first, this was portrayed as a rendezvous and/or formation flying, but it was not quite that advanced. They just flew by within a close distance of each other. It was not a real rendezvous and certainly not a docking. But it was still a first. Both landed on August fifteenth within six minutes of each other.

News of the flight must have come to the U.S. on the weekend. We were still asleep and expecting a hospital baby run at any moment. Our morning rest was over when John Llewellyn showed up banging on our door. He was very upset that the Russians had pulled this off and reminded me that we were still behind in this race. He wanted me to get up and go to work with him so we could “do something.” John was very passionate about our space program. He did not want to lose any more time. But he did eventually settle for coffee and talk on that morning.

After a gap between MA-7 in May, MA-8 flew in October 3, 1962. This period allowed many of us to relocate and find our initial housing in Houston before the whirlpool of another flight. It also gave us time to properly welcome young Glynn, our first son, to the family, our first born in Texas.

The astronauts must have been chagrined at the crew performance during the flight of MA-7. From the outside, it felt like a blood oath had been taken by the rest of the seven to deliver a textbook flight on MA-8. We all believed that Wally Schirra was the guy to do that. The flight was planned for six revolutions, nine plus hours and a big step along the way to a twenty-four plus hours flight on MA-9. We were still cautious about pushing the flight duration too quickly. On MA-8, our two consoles had a very nominal flight to monitor, as Wally ticked through the scheduled spacecraft tests. This performance was crowned by a Pacific landing within sight of the carrier. Even by the name of his spacecraft, Sigma 7, Wally was promising a precise performance that would redeem the past and open the door to the future. He delivered on that pledge and we celebrated the flight. Our mission control act was continuing to improve.

MA-9 was scheduled first for a one-day duration and, as launch date approached, increased to about thirty-four hours. The astronaut was Gordo Cooper, legendary for his stick and rudder skills, but sometimes used in buzzing the ground dwellers and ticking off his bosses. Because of the long duration, Cliff and I would share duties on the FIDO console, John and Carl on Retro. Because of concern for running into some software “funny” under new conditions, we ran the GSFC computer complex and the flight dynamics consoles in MCC in a full up dress rehearsal of the thirty-four hour mission. All worked as it should and we proceeded to the countdown on May fifteenth with confidence, as did the whole MCC team.

Nominal was the flight until very late when an.05g light was reported by Gordo. This eliminated the automatic mode for retrofire. Closer to retrofire, the automatic control system inverter failed. Gordo would now do a manually controlled retrofire and reentry. MA-9 landed within a few miles of the target ship, not bad for an astronaut uncompromised by thirty-four hours of zero g space travel. A great finish to our beginnings in space flight.

During the time from MA-7 until one month after MA-9, the Soviet Union conducted four crewed missions. On Vostok-3, Nikolayev was launched into orbit on August 11, 1962, for what was announced as a longer duration flight. On the next day, Vostok-4 carried Popovich into orbit. The Vostok-4 launch was timed to accomplish a near- approach to Vostok-3. And it did with a closest approach of three point two miles between ships. Then, during June 1963 and a month after MA-9, the Soviet Union performed an “almost” repeat of Vostok-3 and -4. Bykovsky launched on June 14, 1963 in Vostok-5, followed two days later by Vostok-6 which carried the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova, on another near-approach flight. They also passed very close, three point one miles, to each other’s ship. The flight durations were five and three days respectively.

These were not a rendezvous, nor a docking, nor even formation flying. But, it was a demonstration of four crewed flights within a year, two on-time launches (necessary for this close approach) and a crew total of fifteen days in space with Bykovsky logging five of those days. Later reports indicated that Tereshkova had coping difficulties during and after the flight. Still, it was an impressive display of an up-tempo operation, even with the near-approaches accruing more credit than deserved. The Soviets played them straight and brief but western observers were disposed to overplay their significance.

And so Mercury closed out, six successful manned flights and a ton of experience and lessons. The team was also developing a strong sense of confidence in each other. We were not caught up with the Soviet Union but not as far behind as at the start.

Shawn Lunney joined the family on August 4, 1963, our second Texan.

As a caveat, these staffing discussions are the best we can reconstruct of the populating of the FDB as the tempo of Gemini and Apollo really began to fire up during1964. Our records are incomplete, fragmented and dates for arrival onto the FDB team for some people are not readily available. Up until the beginning of 1964, the team had eight people. We then added one per month during 1964, and five more during 1965. At the time of the July 1964 organization release, chartering the FDB, there were twelve engineers – seven in Gemini section and five in Apollo section – not counting myself as branch chief. And, I was about to be selected as the next Flight Director in August 1964. This took me out of any rotation for one of the console operator positions although I did continue to serve as chief of the unit for several more years.

Gemini flights were scheduled within the next year and actually occurred in April 1964 for GT-1, GT-2 in January 1965, and the first manned flight GT-3, in March 1965. The FDB Gemini section was headed by Cliff with John Llewellyn, Dave Massaro (another new Retro), Charlie Parker (Guido), Ed Pavelka (FIDO), Ken Russell (Guido) and Robert White (Retro). Although not listed on the July 1964 organizational chart, Jerry Bostick was also assigned as a Retro and soon as a FIDO, on detail from the John Mayer mission-planning branch until March 1965 when he transferred into FDB. Grady Meyer was the head of the Apollo section, with George Guthrie (FIDO/ Guido), Dave Reed (FIDO), Phil Shaffer (FIDO), and Bobby Spencer (Retro). All of these men performed admirably, and a solid majority of them went on to expand their contributions beyond their individual achievements by strong leadership and mentoring of the new engineers who were already there and those arriving over the next few years. As an example, Cliff was selected as a Flight Director in January 1966, and Phil Shaffer along with Neil Hutchinson, a guidance officer, plus Chuck Lewis and Don Puddy from two other branches were later selected as Flight Directors in 1971.

Jerry Bostick came to us by way of a three cushion bank shot. He seemed to know what he wanted and it took a little while for the tumblers of life to get to the “click” position. For his first cushion, he got the Army to assign him to the NACA Langley Research Center, and they put him in the Structures division, across the base from the STG. To his credit, it only took Jerry six weeks to start looking for another cushion. He did and joined John Mayer’s mission planning branch, working for Carl Huss. This was a great opportunity for one of Carl’s crash education programs and Jerry was helping with MA-7 retrofire sensitivity analysis and then in the support room for the Cape MCC for MA-8. Carl later had a heart attack and Jerry was positioned to become a Retro, joining John Llewellyn. This is where those cushions were steering him. By 1965, it was clear that Jerry was FIDO material and again, Chris agreed. Last cushion was completed. Cliff moved to the Flight Director role after GT-6 and Jerry was on for the GT-8 rendezvous and the first docking. He became the FIDO section head and, when Cliff and I moved to the Flight Director office in 1968, Jerry became the second chief of the FDB.

This staff of twelve in 1964, plus Jerry Bostick, nearly doubled over the next twelve months through the first quarter of 1965. In order of arrival in FDB, there were: Stu Davis, Will Fenner, Chuck Deiterich, Gran Paules, Will Presley, Steve Bales, Garry Renick, Bill Gravett, Maurice Kennedy, Jim I’anson, and Jay Greene. These arrivals added to the strength and depth of the team and many continued in FDB or related work through their careers in NASA MSC, other government agencies, or in industry.