Scrapbook 1: Jan 1962 — John Glenn, destruction

TENSION is mounting here on Rocket Row. The last hours are ticking away to the countdown for the dizziest, busiest, whizziest week in America’s Space history books.

By Friday night, if all goes well, more rockets, missiles, satellites and Space ships will have been fired from here than in any week since the Space Age dawned in 1957.

And Americans, boosted by the hip-hooray and ballyhoo they love, are wild with excitement at the prospect

This thrilling week is due to begin on Wednesday.

Shepherding

Marine Colonel John Glenn, who has enough boisterous enthuslasm at the age of forty to go into orbit almost without a rocket, will climb into a phone-booth-sized Space ship . . . and attempt to orbit the Earth three times and return to talk about it.

Already the gaudy motels which nestle near the sands fringing the Space base are packed.

Reporters, photographers, TV men, radio commentators, scientists, missilemen, and honest-to-goodness spectators, are as thick as flies on the ground.

Cape Canaveral police cars, sirens wailing, patrol like wary collies, shepherding sightseers here and there and clearing the road to the Space base for priority traffic.

Safety

All these people, along with the rest of America, will be praying for a safe take-off by the Atlas rocket powering Glenn’s Mercury Space ship. . . And a safe return.

Television will follow every move, from the moment Glenn puts on his silver Space suit to the awe-inspiring moment when the 100-ton rocket blasts slowly off the launch-pad.

America’s scientists need the know-how which Glenn’s flight alone can provide for the design of their Gemini two-man Space ship.

America is prepared to spend £50,000,000 building a fleet of Geminis to enable men to stay in orbit for a week or more.

Memory

The first Gemini flight is planned for late 1963.

Glenn’s Space trip is also closely tied up with the Apollo project, designed to take three men to the Moon for one orbit before returning to Earth.

Russia has handled all the Space “spectaculars” up to now.

But as Space week begins Americans remember that of thirty-four satellites in orbit, thirty-three are American: and of seventy-five major Space-launches that succeeded, sixty-two were American.

Secrecy

Like scientists here, I feel that the whole Space week has been surrounded by too much hip-hooray and ballyhoo.

But I must admit that the open-handed American methods are to be preferred to the methods of the Russians . . . who handle Space shots in the deepest secrecy.

My comment . .

AMERICANS do beat the big drum in advance. But if there is a slip-up this week at least they will be honest enough to grin and have another go . . . still before the eyes of the world.

ANOTHER TRY AT MOON

THERE are two other highlights of America’s great Space week following John Glenn’s attempt on Wednesday to orbit the Earth.

• On Thursday a 53-ton Thorablestar rocket will blast off with four Navy satellites and one Army satellite.

Gold

Five hundred miles up, the satellites will be ejected from the rocket one by one.

• On Friday the most ambitious attempt of all is due.

America will try to rocket a television-carrying gold and silver-plated Space ship on a sixty-six hour journey to the Moon, more than 238,000 miles away.

This attempt was due to be made today.

But faults were found in the Atlas rocket.

So, as a wave of disappointment swept America, the attempt was postponed.

THE WOMAN who waits . . . Spaceman John Glenn’s wife, Anna. She says: “I’m really thrilled.”

THE ROCKET An Atlas of the type that will carry Glenn’s Mercury ship into Space at 17,500 mph.

THE MAN destined for Space . . . John Glenn, father of two. Glenn, pictured during a Space ship test, says “I am confident and I have faith.”

ON the eve of his space flight today Lt.-Col. John Glenn appealed to America to continue space probes—even if he should die.

Despite this single grim note, the 40-year-old astronaut was reported to be in good spirits, in top physical condition, calm, confident and eager to go.

At 12.30 p.m. GMT today he is scheduled to be hurled into space to become the first American to orbit the earth.

RISK

The marine colonel’s appeal was relayed to reporters by Lt.-Col John A. Powers. the astronaut’s personal spokesman.

He said Col. Glenn had brought it up in conversation that he hoped reporters understood the complexity of his mission.

“He wants you to understand,” Col. Powers added, “that he and we have reduced the risk as far as humanly possible but that there is still risk. He recognises the risk, that there could be a malfunction, that something could happen ti him.”

If anything went wrong he could be in space for ten days—with only 24 hours’ supply of oxygen. His craft would slowly return into the atmosphere.

Weather conditions at Cape Canaveral for Col. Glenn’s space flight to-morrow looked good today. Lt.-Col. John Powers, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman, emphasised the risks of the flight.

Col. Powers said that barring unforeseen launching difficulties, or problems during actual flight, Col. Glenn would probably make three orbits if launched at 12.30 p.m., two orbits if launched after 2.30 p.m. and one if launched after 4 p.m.

MENTIONED BY TASS

Tass, the official Russian news agency, reported the American moon shot attempt last night. It gave brief details of the spacecraft and its mission.—BUP.

Will he have to do THIS today?

by RONALD BEDFORD

CAPE CANAVERAL, Friday.

A LONELY man in a big swivel chair may have to blow up Spaceman John Glenn’s Atlas rocket within thirty seconds of blast-off tomorrow.

All he has to do is lean forward and punch a jampot-sized red button marked “destruct,” and as soon as he does—

• The Space capsule carrying Glenn will be ejected from the rocket;

• The rocket will explode into a great flaming torch as its highly inflammable fuel ignites.

Thirty-eight-year-old Major Winton Hammond, a six-footer from the Mid-West, is the lonely man who faces a momentous decision.

He is “Destruct Officer” here, and his job is to look out for the safety of 20,000 workers on the base and 10,000 other people who live nearby.

With their safety in mind, Hammond alone has the responsibility for destroying the rocket during its first thirty seconds in the air when it could be a danger to the base.

And not even President Kennedy can question his decision.

On average, one rocket in ten is destroyed during the early stage of launching.

HAMMOND has an unemotional approach to his big task.

He told me: “There is a special escape system on Atlas which will get the Spacecraft clear if I have to destruct.

“In tests it has worked perfectly. There is nothing I can do to endanger Glenn if I have to destroy Atlas.”

RELY

He added: “After you have destroyed a rocket you often wonder whether you’ve overlooked something.

“But you have to rely on your own judgment. Even after a destruct I don’t have any difficulty sleeping.”

Like Glenn, Hammond is married and has two teenage children. He has been safety officer since the dawn of America’s Space Age.

DRAWL

He was on duty when the first US Sputnik blew up on the launchpad here.

In a soft drawl, reminiscent of Chester, Marshall Dillon’s sidekick in the TV programme “Gunsmoke,” he told me: “I have met Spaceman Glenn only twice—once in 1958 and the second time last week.

“It is probably best not to know the man too well, though if I did it wouldn’t affect me.

“I know that I can’t hurt him, so I don’t worry.”

An Atlas missile which plunged wildly off course after launching is destroyed—by safety officer Major Winton Hammond.