Word: friendships
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Worrisome as it was, the problem with the attitude control system was nothing as compared with another threat. Just as Glenn was beginning his second orbit, an instrument panel in the Project Mercury Control Center at Canaveral picked up a warning that the Fiberglas heat shield on Friendship 7 had come ajar. If the shield were to separate before or during the capsule's re-entry into the earth's atmosphere, John Glenn would perish in a flash of flame...
Glenn took the news of the deadly threat with characteristic calmness. He made the adjustments necessary to keep the retrorocket packet in place, hand-flew his capsule into proper attitude for descent?and braced himself. Timed by a preset mechanism in the capsule, the braking rockets fired in sequence. Friendship 7 shuddered. "It feels like I'm going clear back to Hawaii," Glenn radioed. He could feel his body beginning to be squeezed by the buildup of G forces. Outside the window, he could see a fiery glow. It grew brighter and brighter. "It became apparent that something was tearing...
...Friendship 7 splashed into the Atlantic with a sizzle as the red-hot shield turned the sea water to steam. Surging ahead at flank speed, the destroyer Noa* began to race helicopters from the carrier Randolph to the scene. The Noa won, plucked the capsule out of the ocean at 3:01. Across the U.S., the TV audience sagged weakly with relief...
Ordered back to the U.S., Glenn ended up as a test pilot for the Navy's Chance Vought F8U Crusader fighter. On one flight, Glenn showed the determination that later landed him in the cockpit of Friendship 7. He had the F8U up to Mach 1.2 when something snapped and the plane veered sharply. Most test pilots would have gingerly guided the plane back to the base, but Glenn, scribbling notes all the while, stubbornly pushed the fighter up to Mach 1.2 two more times to see if it would happen again. It did. When he finally landed, Glenn discovered...
...Grissom was in charge of the capsule control system. Glenn specialized in the capsule's cockpit layout, contributed substantially to its design. Among other things, he suggested an auxiliary power system that was adopted by McDonnell Aircraft Corp., designer and builder of the spacecraft. Glenn's own Friendship 7 (which he named himself after consulting his family) was tailor-made to his specifications. He color-coded his instrument panel, arranged the 165 meters, dials, toggles, levers and lamps to suit his taste, and marked guidelines on his window to help gauge his observations...