Word: shepards
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Shepard relaxed on the couch until 3:55. Then, escorted by two doctors, he carried his portable air-conditioning unit out of the building. Glaring TV lights met him head on, forcing him to squint his eyes. He climbed into the white transport van, lay down on another contour couch while the van drove slowly...
...Shepard stayed on the van's couch, comfortably cooled and pressurized, until 5:14, when he went up in the gantry's elevator and entered the Mercury capsule, which was named Freedom 7 (from Shepard's seventh place on the alphabetical list of trained astronauts). Reporters, TV crews, and crowds of technicians from McDonnell Aircraft Corp. (which made the capsule) watched the silvery apparition with awe and admiration. For the last time that morning, Shepard lay down on a contour couch...
Redstone Ready. The lonely wait ahead of him was as familiar as the suiting-up process. Just three days before, Shepard had struggled into his pressure suit and suffered its discomfort for nearly four hours before the shot was canceled because of weather. Now the whole tedious preflight procedure had been repeated. Step by step the Redstone had been readied for launch. The capsule's innards had been checked and rechecked (Fellow Astronaut John Glenn had spent the previous two hours in a minute inspection) before a warning horn sent mournful blasts across the palmetto flats. The Redstone...
Still there were more delays. Weather reports were coming in from the length of the Southeastern seaboard, and the possibility of cloud cover had to be calculated over and over. Minor mechanical troubles had to be repaired. As the countdown was held and 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...
What a Ride. Strapped firmly on his couch, Shepard could hear the rocket's roar, could feel its wild vibration, its immense thrust as he was boosted into the air. Everything went exactly according to expectations. In the operations room at the Mercury control blockhouse, doctors crouched over telemetering equipment that recorded the astronaut's pulse, temperature, respiration. Range officers watched as moving lights on the electronic status board traced the rocket's path, predicted the capsule's point of impact. Another astronaut manned the communications console and began the running fire of reports...