Word: schirras
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Dutiful Flying. Everything went right from the beginning. Sigma 7 bobbed into a beautifully circular orbit, and calm, cool Navy Commander Walter Marty ("Wally") Schirra, 39, was in buoyant good humor. "Sayonara!" he cried when the escape tower separated, and soon he reported "all systems green and go." Then he settled down to cheerful, competent and dutiful space flying. He watched the instruments closely and talked with each control station as he passed near it. Like the other astronauts, Schirra ran into trouble with the water boil-off system of his space suit, and its temperature became so high...
Over Australia, Schirra changed the attitude of his capsule, but he did it very slowly to save precious peroxide fuel. Nearing Mexico, Schirra announced that he was flying "chimp configuration," meaning that he was on the fuel-saving automatic control as if a chimp were piloting. When he heard that all was favorable for the full six orbits, he cried, "Hallelujah!" and over Hawaii he called out, "Aloha!" At one point, he radioed back to earth: "I have a delightful report for one John Glenn. I, too, see fireflies"-the luminous particles first noticed by Glenn outside the capsule...
Drifting & Dreaming. The Sigma 7 was equipped for a few scientific experiments, including some star observations for Schirra to make. But the main purpose of the six-orbit flight was to check the performance of the capsule's oxygen, electrical-and attitude-control systems. Considered critical was the amount of fuel needed. Schirra proved, as the technicians had suspected, that both Glenn and Carpenter could have managed with much less fuel if they had done less aimless maneuvering...
...fourth orbit, Schirra shut off all control systems and went into drifting flight, his capsule turning slowly as it swept around the earth. Sometimes he rode backwards, sometimes upside down, but since he was weightless anyway, this did not bother him at all. "Drifting and dreaming," he radioed cheerfully to the ground. He drifted for three hours and 26 minutes, burning no fuel. Astronauts Glenn and Carpenter used nearly all their fuel before reentry, but Schirra approached the critical moment with 80% of his fuel still untouched...
While Sigma 7 bobbed on the little waves of the sunlit Pacific, Schirra reported by radio that he was dry and comfortable and would prefer to be picked up while still in his own ship. "A sweet little bird," he remarked. Helicopters dropped frogmen into the water, and they attached inflatable tubes to keep Sigma 7 afloat. Then the Kcarsarge launched a whaleboat, which attached a line to the capsule. With Navy punctilio. Schirra formally asked the Kearsarge's captain for "permission to come aboard.'' "Permission granted." said Captain Eugene P. Rankin. After blowing the side hatch...