Word: astronaut
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...above the earth was a functioning-if not always perfect-vehicle; in the salt water of the Atlantic, it became as vulnerable as a paper boat in a storm. The difference spelled a near disaster that taught the U.S. space program some valuable lessons, and may cause a third astronaut to be flung aloft before the program can proceed with its plan to put a man into orbit...
Before his ordeal, Astronaut Grissom went twice through the tedious preparations for flight,..sealed each time into the Mercury capsule Liberty Bell 7 on the nose of the Redstone rocket. Twice the shot was scrubbed when clouds over Cape Canaveral threatened to spoil the photographic record of the flight. Air Force Captain Grissom, 35, took it all in stride. "I'll be ready when you are," he told officials as he stretched his limbs after hours of fruitless waiting in the cramped capsule...
Grissom has flown more than 3,000 hours, 2,000 of them in jets. Chosen as one of the seven astronauts in 1959, he went about his tasks quietly and efficiently, was almost unnoticed as he backstopped the more ebullient Commander Alan Shepard during the first shot. His specialty: control of the space capsule's, attitude system. After he was picked as an astronaut, he admitted that he sometimes lay in bed thinking: "Now what in the hell do I want to get up in that thing for?" He had his own answer. "I'm a test pilot...
What happened next added a new element of mystery to the recovery operation. "When we were about ten to 20 feet away from the capsule," reported Pilot James Lewis, "we observed the hatch being blown. We saw the astronaut egress from the space capsule and go into the water immediately after the hatch was blown...
...upright position by the pull of a helicopter's cable. In this case its opening was disastrous. The sea was comparatively calm, but the Liberty Bell 7 was not built for seaworthiness with its hatch open. It wobbled, took in a surge of water and began to sink. Astronaut Grissom swam through the tepid water in his buoyant, silvery space suit, taking in great gulps of sea water dyed bright green to mark his landing. Though his remarks from the capsule at first led observers to believe that he had released the new-style hatch, Grissom later reported that...