Word: glenns
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...crossed the Pacific a second time, Glenn discovered that his gyroscopes were wandering. The erratic jets were making the capsule "roll" (turn on its horizontal axis). A similar roll in November's flight of the chimp named Enos had forced the men at Cape Canaveral to bring the capsule down after two orbits. But again, John Glenn was able to overcome the trouble manually...
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...
...other tracking stations picked up the ominous signal. At the Cape, Project Mercury officials huddled tensely, trying to decide what to do. The answer might mean life or searing death to John Glenn. The final decision was made by Operations Director Walter Williams: an attempt would be made to hold the heat shield in place by changing the re-entry procedure. The retrorocket packet was supposed to be jettisoned after the rockets themselves had been fired. But the packet itself was bound to the capsule by three thin metal bands. Williams figured that the bands might be strong enough...
...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...
...ground. Astronaut Alan Shepard, the capsule communicator at Cape Canaveral, lost radio contact with Glenn. At the same time, other instruments tracking the capsule stopped registering. The blackout was predictable, caused by ionization from the heat of reentry. It lasted for seven minutes and 15 seconds. Then came John Glenn's exultant voice. "Boy!" he cried. "That was a real fireball...