Word: shepards
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Until the last two minutes before blastoff, the cherry picker had been close to the pad, prepared to snatch Shepard from Freedom 7 in case of a disaster on the ground. Besides the cherry picker, a fire-proofed Army personnel carrier stood by with a fire-suited crew. Some four miles from Pad 5, the headquarters of the Cape's Abort Rescue Team was a humming hive of activity. Six helicopters were tuning up, ready to carry skilled technicians, doctors and frogmen to rescue the astronaut if the capsule splashed near by. If the Freedom 7 should start...
Tests & Torture. Painstaking as they were, all the preparations for trouble could not compare with the planning that had gone into the training of the astronaut himself. One of seven volunteers chosen in April 1959 from a list of no military test pilots, Shepard had been in rigorous discipline ever since. He took physical tests that most doctors have no need for. His blood was analyzed in a dozen different ways; the functioning of his various organs-heart, lungs, spleen, stomach, eyes, etc.-were tested over and over. He traveled out to Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory to have his body...
Along with his fellow astronauts, Shepard submitted on the ground to all the possible privations of space flight. He walked on endless treadmills, sat with his feet in ice water, endured two hours in a room heated to 130°F. and three hours in a soundproof, totally dark chamber. He took countless psychological tests. His torso was tattooed to mark the spots where electrodes would be attached for medical measurement...
Most important of all, Shepard and his fellows (they are all as well trained as he) learned to operate the intricate machinery of a Mercury capsule, which is far from being a passive space vehicle that is just up there to coast along. Though it weighs only a little more than one ton (Russia's Vostok weighed five tons), it is packed with instruments, controls and safety devices, many of them merely duplicate systems for the sake of safety. Sealed into an actual capsule, Shepard "flew" dozens of simulated missions without leaving the ground, learned to handle the controls...
Skis & Soles. For Shepard, the challenging curriculum seemed a natural outgrowth of the life that he likes to lead. Born in East Derry, N.H. (pop. 200), in 1923, he is the son of a retired Army colonel, but he chose the Naval Academy instead of West Point, was commissioned an ensign in 1944, and served on a destroyer in the Atlantic until the end of World War II. Everything he did, he did with a personal flair. When he wangled orders to flight school, he became so impatient with the pace of service routine that he got himself a private...