Word: prelaunch
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Walter C. Williams Jr., 42, operations director for Project Mercury and the overall coordinator of Glenn's flight, handled the prelaunch and launch operations and all the other ground support activities, including tracking and recovery. He had the final say on whether and when the flight would be made, with authority to countermand the orders of everyone but the range safety officer, who had absolute power to destroy the missile in the first five minutes of flight if it veered off course irretrievably. A short, crew-cut aeronautical engineer, Williams worked in aeronautical research after graduating from Louisiana State...
...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 flame, and the flight began...