Space

  “And how,” asked a practiced engineer, “can we possibly fit together seven parts made in seven or eight different shops?”

  “By precision,” Mott said, and he started to explain how the specifications of each part would be so exactly drawn that it would abut against its neighbors below and above with tolerances of a thousandth of an inch. But then he saw with dismay that Dieter Kolff, infuriated by what he held to be a wrong decision, had risen to his feet, red of face, ready to blast the program while members of the press were in the room taking notes. He must be forestalled.

  “And our good friend Dieter Kolff,” Mott said blandly, “will at last be able to build his monster rocket which will carry us to outer space.”

  The Germans working under Kolff cheered, but Dieter, aware of the trick that had been used to silence him, glared and sat down. He and Mott would not speak to each other for seven years.

  It was said previously that President Eisenhower, never an advocate of wasting money in space and almost an enemy of the program, made a series of crucial decisions and made them right. The first was when he placed the program in civilian hands and then protected it from military encroachment. His second may have been even more determinative, for when he learned that the fledgling NASA was about to broadcast a Civil Service Notice inviting civilians to apply for astronaut training at a salary of $8,330 a year and a rating of GS-12, he hit the roof, warning the administrators that such a blanket solicitation would bring crazies out of the woodwork, or as one jaundiced observer phrased it: “We’ll be deluged by all the matadors, scuba divers, hot-rod racers, hopheads, [393] Mount-Everest-because-it’s-there gang and half a dozen women who will demand that the Supreme Court enforce their right to fly.”

  Eisenhower stopped such nonsense in a hurry. Summoning the NASA command, he said bluntly, “The men we need for this job are already in our armed forces. Our test pilots. They’ve been doing work like this for years and they’ll jump at the chance.” By that simple device he ensured that the first seven astronauts would be competent, disciplined types who would never embarrass the nation. Besides, as a military man, he knew he could hire the best Navy captains and Air Force colonels for $560 a month “plus a few perquisites here and there.”

  Commander John Pope had been with his Air Group squadrons aboard the Tulagi off the coast of Asia, supervising intelligence flights over trouble spots like Korea and Vietnam when the first BuPers announcement was posted inviting any Navy fliers with test-pilot experience to volunteer for the pool from which a small group of men would be chosen for astronaut training. Since he was happy with his job, evaluating it correctly as an essential step to any position of high command, he could express no interest in this new career possibility, but he did notice that had he wanted to get back to that kind of work, he would have been eligible: “Two years experience as test pilot in at least twenty major types of aircraft, not over forty years of age as of 31 December, not over 5 feet 11 inches, not over 177 pounds.” He was vaguely pleased to see that he would have qualified on every point, and then he forgot the whole affair.

  But in April 1959, when he became aware of the furor caused by the presentation of the first seven astronauts to the public, he checked carefully to ascertain whether any of his test-pilot friends were in the group, and for two days he moved about the Tulagi, telling anyone who would listen, “Hey, I know these guys. Al Shepard and Scott Carpenter were with me at Pax River. Great guys. I flew with John Glenn in Korea, him in daylight, me at night. At Edwards they told me this guy Slayton was a hotshot.”

  From a distance he followed the press releases about the Sacred Seven, as an irreverent Navy pilot called them, and read with interest and a little envy the splendid stories Life ran about them and their wives. When the first [394] Mercury shots took off with monkeys as passengers, this same Navy pilot took to calling the over-publicized astronauts “Spam in a Can,” an allusion to the fact that they would be not aviators in the old sense but passive cargo in an intricate machine controlled by computers and ground-based directors.

  Pope did not share this contempt. He argued that in the first stages of any new development the mechanics took priority, and he predicted: “Give men like that one flight, and they’ll take over. I know those characters. They’re take-charge guys.” And he assumed that they would be quickly leaving the Earth on their historic missions, but he had grossly miscalculated the difficulties the American program would encounter.

  He was aboard the Tulagi that day in April 1961 when the Russian Yuri Gagarin made man’s first flight into space, and was depressed for several weeks by what he held to be a personal defeat: “Where were our Navy men? Why weren’t they up there first?” And his disappointments were not alleviated when Alan Shepard finally made what Pope had to describe as “a pathetic counter-gesture,” and after the details were made available he wrote a discouraged letter to his wife:

  Don’t let your senators go around making speeches about the glorious triumph of our space program. Shepard’s flight was like a child’s sparkler when compared to Yuri Gagarin’s meteor. Shepard rose 116 miles in the air, Gagarin 203. Shepard was in the air 15 minutes, Gagarin 108. Our man traveled 303 miles, theirs 25,000. Shepard was weightless five minutes, Gagarin, 89 minutes. Tell your men to get busy.

  John Glenn’s real flight into space, a three-orbit triumph, excited Pope enormously, and he began a collection of major stories about the astronaut and his reception in various nations. He learned the name of Glenn’s wife and the fact that she had a slight stammer “which she bravely overcame, proving that the wives of the astronauts have just as much courage as their husbands.” And he began to think seriously of volunteering for the astronaut corps [395] when the next group was chosen from the military test pilots.

  But when the announcement was posted on the bulletin board at Jacksonville, where he was checking new planes to assure that they could land easily on the carriers stationed off the coast of Florida, he was forestalled from submitting his name by Admiral Crane, commander of the district, who gave him a sharply pointed fatherly talk:

  “Pope, avoid this temptation. It looks enticing-to be an astronaut and to have your picture in the newsreels. And we can be proud of our Navy men. They’ve done a better job than any of the others. You know, of course, that John Glenn’s a Marine.

  “But I assure you that every one of these men who leaves the service, Navy or Air Force or Army, will be surrendering his career in the service, whether he thinks he is or not. He’ll have the glamour for a while, the excitement of parades, but when he wants to come back and help run the Navy, he’ll find the doors quietly closing against him. The great job of running one of the nation’s armed services will be denied him.

  “Pope, it’s well known in the Navy, and I’m sure you’ve suspected it, but you stand high in everyone’s opinion. We have no position to which you can’t aspire. You saw my last fitness report on you. The next one will be stronger. Don’t fritter away this golden opportunity by grasping at some temporary bauble. Leave the Moon to the wild-blue-yonder boys. The real job is down here on the oceans of the world.”

  Pope did not volunteer for the second selection of astronauts, and he had put the matter pretty much out of mind when several things happened. In September 1962 when the new selections were announced, with the nine young men displayed on television, he shouted to Penny, who was visiting him from Washington, “Hey, they took Pete Conrad! You knew him at Pax River. You slept at his house one night, after the big party.” And when Penny ran into the room she found her husband shouting with [396] an excitement she had rarely witnessed, “That’s Frank Borman. I flew with him at Edwards. And I’m sure that little guy on the end was John Young. He’s a terrific flier. If it’s the Young I knew, he’s a hard driver.”

  Now Pope began to follow with real longing the careers of the original Sacred Seven and the new Nifty Nine, for these were men his own age, men he had flown with, men with whom he had conducted simulated dogfights in un
tested planes over the silvery waters of the Chesapeake or the barren flats at Edwards. He remembered going up to Pete Conrad one morning at Pax River and asking, “Anything odd about this crate?” and he could almost hear the Princeton man instructing him: “Very delicate when you try to land at low speeds.”

  But his sudden interest related in no way to any dissatisfaction with his own career. Admiral Crane had guessed right about Pope’s good standing with the Navy hierarchy, because shortly after his perceptive observations at Jacksonville, John received notice of his promotion to full commander and an assignment as executive officer aboard his old carrier Tulagi, still stationed in the Pacific. This nipped any personal interest in space that might have been germinating, for as he prepared himself for his new duties, Crane stopped by to talk to him: “Aren’t you glad you stayed with the fleet? Discharge this duty with distinction and you’ll earn yourself captain’s stripes. After that, you’re eligible for any job we have.”

  Penny was delighted to hear of his promotion and arranged to fly down to Pensacola for the party for which he would don his new stripes, and John was pleased to see how she radiated her pleasure. As they were dressing for the celebration she uttered a little yelp of glee as he donned his new uniform. “You’re even more handsome as a full commander.” Then she tried to talk about her job, but he was too preoccupied to follow the details. Later she said, “I told you something about ten minutes ago, but you weren’t listening. Senator Glancey’s had me busy getting authorization for a special selection of astronauts. The program’s moving ahead faster than we anticipated. Would you have any interest in volunteering?”

  “Nope. I did, briefly, a few months back. But things have opened up better than I could have expected in the Navy chain of command. I’m set.”

  [397] She kissed kiln ardently and cried. “I’m so relieved, John. As I watch the space program unfold, it seems so damned … well, hysterical. Politicians using it to get bases for their districts. Newspapers using it to up their sales. And this man from Folks laying his oily plans. In the end, many of the astronauts will be short-changed.”

  “Admiral Crane said the same thing, months ago.”

  “And I’ve a strong feeling that when it’s at its height, the country will drop it like a bad tomato!”

  When John said he doubted that last statement, she said, “I already see signs that Glancey is beginning to back off, and he’s an absolute litmus paper. He and Lyndon Johnson see things ten years before they happen.”

  “How about Grant?”

  “He’s a dear, John. Red, white and blue right through the center of his limited brain. I love that man.” She laughed uneasily, then added, “I mean, my heart breaks for him sometimes. His dipsy-doodle wife. That crazy daughter of his. He really deserves better.”

  “What’s his daughter up to now?”

  “Haven’t you heard? She’s a Ph.D. and dean of faculty at a university in Los Angeles.”

  “I don’t think that’s so crazy.”

  “But the university has no faculty. It sells beautifully engraved diplomas for five hundred dollars each. We can get you a second Ph.D. anytime you say the word.”

  They had a passionate celebration in Pensacola, a treasured meeting of two people whose love had grown each year since high school, but an embarrassing moment occurred during the rowdy speeches in the officers’ club. John had said how much he appreciated his promotion, even though he wasn’t sure he deserved it-loud protests-when Penny rose, rattled her knife against her glass, and said, “Promotions everywhere in the Pope family.” Facing her husband, she said, “I didn’t want to intrude on your celebration, but I’m the new permanent counsel of the Senate Space Committee.”

  Amid cheers and whistles, wives gathered around her with kisses, and John, watching from his end of the table, had the ugly thought: That flush of excitement when she arrived was caused by her promotion, not mine. What he did not remember was that she had tried to tell him of her good luck but was prevented from doing so by his [398] inattention. Then, dismissing such speculation as unworthy, he jumped from his chair, elbowed his way through the wives, caught Penny by her two hands, and drew her toward him for a kiss.

  “Does permanent counsel mean you can’t be fired?”

  “Not unless I steal funds.”

  “Hooray! We can afford a new car!”

  Commander Pope’s career would probably have proceeded according to Admiral Crane’s predictions had the carrier Tulagi remained in Pacific waters, but it did not, and when Pope reported for duty as executive officer he learned that his immediate assignment was to accompany the carrier out of Jacksonville and into the Caribbean, where it would serve as the principal recovery vessel for the three-orbit flight which Astronaut Scott Carpenter was about to make in his Mercury capsule Aurora-7.

  The briefing book for the recovery procedure contained one hundred and forty-one pages, with a biography of Carpenter which showed that he had learned his test-piloting at Pax River. From a first rapid reading of the instructions, Pope deduced that about two dozen Navy ships would be in position to monitor the flight and pick Carpenter up from whatever part of the ocean he landed in, Pacific or Atlantic, and that about 125 airplanes would be in flight to lend assistance.

  At the heart of everything [he wrote to Penny] will be the Tulagi, waiting with helicopters, powerboats and rescue frogmen to see that our boy gets down safely. We’ll spot the capsule on radar first, track it into our location, then pick it up visually so that we can vector our copters into the exact point he hits. It’s an amazing exercise in tactics and I’m proud to have my ship play a part in it.

  He studied each page of the briefing book and became acquainted with what everyone along the flight path would be doing at each moment: the lonely watchers on Ascension Island, the remote listeners in Australia, the men in the fail-safe destroyer near the Antarctic Ocean, the hundred-odd experts at Cape Canaveral who would follow each mile of the flight. And always he would come back [399] to the duties of his carrier Tulagi, whose operations would close the circle and bring Scott Carpenter home safely.

  It was an intricate role the carrier had: to position itself properly so as to track the capsule as it descended under its parachute, then dispatch helicopters at the proper signal, deploy frogmen to rescue Carpenter if his system fouled the way Gus Grissom’s had endangered him on the second Mercury flight, arrange for the orderly transfer of the astronaut to the carrier, and dispatch the proper messages to assure the world that the flight had ended safely.

  Much of this detail focused on Pope, and to ensure its proper execution he drilled his teams repeatedly, both in dry runs and in real-time simulations. Insofar as he could determine, the Tulagi was going to perform competently, quietly, very forcefully, and when the great carrier steamed out of Jacksonville with sixteen newspaper and television reporters aboard, he told everyone, “This is a military assignment. I shall expect outstanding performance.”

  The Tulagi assumed its station in the Caribbean on the afternoon of 22 May 1962, with the expectation that Carpenter would descend out of the skies in the late morning of 24 May. Helicopters were tested, radio circuits to the mainland were checked, and the frogmen were sent into the water on both the twenty-second and the twenty-third to be sure that they were familiar with temperatures and currents.

  Shortly before dawn on the morning of the twenty-fourth the Tulagi was hit by a chain of squalls that deposited a great amount of rain and caused some of the reporters to file disheartening stories, but by 0900 the storms had departed and the ocean had assumed a character so benevolent that one newsman said, “Hell, he can water-ski over to us,” and at that moment the powerboats that would deliver the frogmen to the capsule flashed by, throwing spray. It was a glorious morning, the kind that Columbus must have known when sailing these waters.

  Now the Tulagi began to receive reassuring messages from the control center at Cape Canaveral: “Aurora-7 on target. All systems go. All stations reporting favo
rably. Splashdown as scheduled.”

  But when the flight was about an hour from its completion, ugly little uncertainties began to intrude, and [400] once Pope heard Cape Canaveral asking: “How much fuel?” He did not hear the answer, but the Cape said: “Check again. How much fuel?”

  Thirty minutes out it became apparent that something had gone badly wrong, because the Cape was signaling ships far distant from the Tulagi to prepare for possible recovery maneuvers, and when Pope checked to see where those vessels were-although he knew perfectly from his studies-he saw that they were two hundred and three hundred miles distant.

  “What’s happening?” he demanded of a NASA specialist aboard the carrier, but that man could give no definite explanation: “Fuel problem, apparently.

  “Isn’t he going to land here?” Pope asked.

  “Splash down,” the NASA man corrected, and he said the words so mechanically, as if using the right terminology was important, that Pope wanted to slug him.

  “Is he going to splash down here?” he asked, emphasizing each word, but before the NASA man could respond, the radio crackled: “USS Intrepid, prepare to recover.” The Intrepid was 250 miles away! Shepard had landed almost on target. So had Gus Grissom, while Glenn’s landing had been marvelously good. This one was a fiasco, and as the minutes passed with nothing in the sky, John Pope stood by the railing of his carrier and came as close to cursing as he ever had.

  Why did we have to be the ones they cheated? he asked himself again and again. He had practiced how he would greet Carpenter when he came aboard: “Good afternoon, Scott. Some distance from Pax River.” For two days on the trip out he had been unable to remember Mrs. Carpenter’s name, although he knew her well, and the papers given him did not state it, so he had TWXed the Cape: “WHAT NAME MRS. CARPENTER?” and they had replied “RENE” and then of course he remembered.