Word: astronaut
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...Residue. In his silvered pressure suit, Astronaut Shepard seemed a creature from another planet as he stepped out of a white van into the baleful Florida dawn last week. He glittered under the searchlights that surrounded the rocket pad as he made his long-legged walk to the gantry elevator that would lift him to his capsule. When he rose to the "greenhouse," an enclosed platform at the gantry's 65-ft. level, technicians helped him squeeze through a hatch in the squat, black space capsule perched atop a Redstone rocket. Then he submitted to the time-consuming business...
...pressure suit and suffered its discomfort for nearly four hours before the shot was canceled because of weather. Now the whole tedious preflight procedure had been repeated. Step by step the Redstone had been readied for launch. The capsule's innards had been checked and rechecked (Fellow Astronaut John Glenn had spent the previous two hours in a minute inspection) before a warning horn sent mournful blasts across the palmetto flats. The Redstone was ready...
...repaired. As the countdown was held and resumed, doctors talked to Shepard and pronounced him the calmest man on the Cape. At T minus 2 minutes (2 minutes before launch), as the sun climbed the eastern sky, the "cherry picker" (a jointed crane capable of plucking the astronaut out of his capsule in case of a prelaunch disaster) backed away. At T minus 30 seconds the "umbilical cord" of tubing and cables that had been supplying electricity, communication and liquid oxygen fell free. At 9:34 a.m. the last second ticked off; the rocket's liquid-fueled engines flared...
...couch, Shepard could hear the rocket's roar, could feel its wild vibration, its immense thrust as he was boosted into the air. Everything went exactly according to expectations. In the operations room at the Mercury control blockhouse, doctors crouched over telemetering equipment that recorded the astronaut's pulse, temperature, respiration. Range officers watched as moving lights on the electronic status board traced the rocket's path, predicted the capsule's point of impact. Another astronaut manned the communications console and began the running fire of reports...
...They were not necessary for the flight; this time they were fired for practice. Then the retro package was jettisoned. Preparing for descent, Shepard reported that his periscope had retracted. As the capsule plunged downward into the atmosphere, and the Gs of deceleration climbed toward a punishing 10, the astronaut's voice grew gruff as he strained to make his breath behave. Then the capsule slowed; his words were distinct again...