These tests will be reviewed with particular emphasis on schedule, the
individual mission objectives, and the results from each mission. Then, the
organization with which management directed the activities of Project Mercury will be explained, particularly with respect
to those internal interfaces between major segments of NASA and those external interfaces with contractors and other governmental departments.
The resources expended during the project will be explained with discussions
on manpower and cost. In addition, the major results of the project will be
discussed as will those areas which presented severe obstacles to technical
Objectives and Guidelines
The objectives of the Mercury Project, as stated at the time of project go-ahead, were as follows:
- Place a manned spacecraft in orbital flight around the earth.
Investigate man's performance capabilities and his ability to function in the
environment of space.
Recover the man and the spacecraft safely.
After the objectives were established for the project, a number of
guidelines were established to insure that the most expedient and safest approach for attainment of the objectives was followed. The basic
guidelines that were established are as follows:
- Existing technology and off-the-shelf equipment should be used
- The simplest and most reliable approach to system design would be
- An existing launch vehicle would be employed to place the
spacecraft into orbit.
- A progressive and logical test program would be conducted.
More detailed requirements for the spacecraft were established as
- The spacecraft must be fitted with a reliable launch-escape
system to separate the spacecraft and its crew from the launch vehicle in case of
The pilot must be given the capability of manually controlling spacecraft attitude.
The spacecraft must carry a retrorocket system capable of reliably providing the necessary impulse to bring the spacecraft out of orbit.
A zero-lift body utilizing drag braking would be used for reentry.
The spacecraft design must satisfy the requirements for a water landing.
It is obvious by a casual look at the spacecraft that requirements (1), (3), and (4) were followed as
evidenced by the escape tower, the retrorocket system on the blunt end of the spacecraft, and the simple
blunt-body shape without wings. Items (2) and (5) have been made apparent by the manner in which the astronaut has manually controlled the attitude of
the spacecraft during orbital maneuvers, retrofire, and reentry, and by the recovery of the spacecraft and astronauts after each flight by recovery
forces which included aircraft carriers and destroyers. Basically, the equipment used in the spacecraft was derived from off-the-shelf equipment or through the direct application of existing
technology, although some notable exceptions were made in order to improve
reliability and flight safety. These exceptions include:
- An automatic blood-pressure measuring system for use in
- Instruments for sensing the partial pressures of oxygen and carbon
dioxide in the oxygen atmosphere of the cabin and suit, respectively.
Some may argue with the detailed way in which the second basic guideline
of simplicity was carried out; however, this guideline was carried out to
the extent possible within the volume, weight, and redundancy requirements imposed upon the overall system. The effect of the weight and volume constraints, of course, resulted in smaller and lighter equipment that could
not always be packaged in an optimum way for simplicity.
Redundancy probably increased the complexity of the systems more than
any other requirement. Because the spacecraft had to be qualified by space flight first without a man onboard and then because the reactions of man and
his capabilities in the space environment were unknown, provisions for a completely automatic operation for the critical spacecraft functions were
provided. To insure reliable operation, these automatic systems were backed
up by redundant automatic systems.
The third guideline was satisfied by an adaptation of an existing
missile, the Atlas. The modifications to this launch vehicle for use in the
Mercury Project included the addition of a means to sense automatically impending catastrophic failure of the launch vehicle and provisions to
accommodate a new structure that would form the transition between the upper
section of the launch vehicle and the spacecraft. Also, the pilot-safety program was initiated to insure the selection of quality components.
We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained,
and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of
all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has
no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only
if the United States occupies a position of preeminence can we help decide
whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new, terrifying theater
John F. Kennedy
Rice University Stadium
September 12, 1962
CHAPTER TWO, "Exploring the Human Factor" (1948-1958)
The development of the large liquid-fueled rocket made the dazzling
prospect of manned flight beyond Earth's atmosphere and into the vacuum of space
increasingly feasible from the standpoint of propulsion. By 1950, however, only instrumented sounding rockets, fired to ever higher altitudes
in both the United States and the Soviet Union, had reached into space before falling earthward. Although a number of these experimental shots
carried living organisms (everything from fungus spores to monkeys in the United States, mainly dogs in the
U.S.S.R.) the data acquired from telemetry and from occasional recovery of rocket nose cones had not shown conclusively
how long organisms could live in space, or indeed whether man could survive at all outside the protective confines of his atmosphere. Scientists still
were hesitant to predict how a human being would behave under conditions to be encountered in space flight. Thus while space flight became
technologically practicable, physiologically and psychologically it remained
an enigma. In the early 1950s an acceleration of efforts in upper-atmospheric and
space medical research accompanied the quickened pace of rocket development in this country and in the Soviet Union. During the next few years medical
specialists, profiting from substantial progress in telemetering clinical data, learned a great deal about what a man could expect when he went into
the forbidding arena of space. Much of the confidence with which the engineers of Project Mercury in 1958 approached the job of putting a man
into orbit and recovering him stemmed from the findings of hundreds of
studies made in previous years on the human factors in space flight.
Since the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was interested
almost exclusively in the technology of flight, research in the medical problems of space flight, like aviation medicine in previous decades, was
the province primarily of the military services and of some civilian research organizations receiving funds from the military. Of the three
services, the United States Air Force, rich in background in aeromedical research and assuming that space medicine was but an extension of aviation medicine, undertook most of the early inquiry into the
psycho-physiological problems of extra-atmospheric flight.
Now that men had been chosen to serve as the focal points for all this
effort, new spirits animated the Space Task Group (STG). Indeed, the Nation
as a whole began to participate vicariously in Project Mercury when, on April 9, 1959, at a press conference in Washington, Glennan
(NASA ADMINISTRATOR) introduced to the public the seven men chosen to be this Nation's nominees for the first human voyagers into space.
They were to be called "astronauts," as the pioneers of ballooning had been called "Argonauts," for they were to sail into a new, uncharted ocean.
These personable pilots were introduced in civilian dress; many people in their audience forgot that they were volunteer test subjects and military
officers. Their public comments did not class them with any elite
intelligence. Rather they were a contingent of mature Americans, average
in build and visage, family men all, college-educated as engineers, possessing excellent health, and professionally committed to flying advanced
Compared with the average, white, middle-class American male, they
enjoyed better health, physically and psychologically, and they had far more
experience among and above the clouds. Slightly short of average in stature, they were above average in seriousness of purpose. Otherwise these
seven seemed almost random samples of average American manhood. Yet the names of Carpenter, Cooper, Glenn, Grissom,
Schirra, Shepard, and Slayton
were perhaps to become as familiar in American history as those of any actor, soldier, or athlete.
Despite the wishes of NASA Headquarters, and particularly of Dryden, Silverstein, and
Gilruth, the fame of the astronauts quickly grew beyond all
proportion to their current activities and their preflight mission assignments. Perhaps it was inevitable that the "crew-pool" members of STG
were destined for premature adulation, what with the enormous public curiosity about them, the risk they would take in space flight, and their
exotic training activities. But the power of commercial competition for publicity and the pressure for political prestige in the space race also
whetted an insatiable public appetite for this new kind of celebrity.
Walter T. Bonney, long a public information officer for NACA and now
Glennan's adviser on these matters, foresaw the public and press attention,
asked for an enlarged staff, and laid the guidelines for public affairs policy in close accord with that of other Government agencies.
The astronauts were first and foremost test pilots, men accustomed to flying along in the newest, most advanced, and most powerful vehicles this
civilization had produced. They were talented specialists who loved to fly high-performance aircraft and who had survived the natural selection process
in their profession. The demand for excellence in piloting skills, in physical health, and psychological adaptability becomes ever more stringent
as one ascends the ladder toward the elite among military aviators, those senior test pilots with upwards of 1500 hours' total flying time.
Eisenhower's decision that the military services could provide the
pilots greatly simplified the astronaut selection procedure. From a total of 508 service records screened in January 1959 by Stanley C. White, Robert
B. Voas, and William S. Augerson at the military personnel bureaus in Washington, 110 men were found to meet the minimum
standards specified earlier. This list of names included five Marines, 47
Navy men, and 58 Air Force pilots. Several Army pilots' records had been screened earlier, but none was a graduate of a test pilot school. The
selection process began while the possibility of manned Redstone flights in
late 1959 still existed on paper. The evaluation committee at Headquarters, headed by the Assistant
Director of STG, Charles J. Donlan, decided to divide the list of 110 arbitrarily into three groups and to issue invitations for the first group
of 35 to come to Washington at the beginning of February for briefings and
interviews. Donlan was pleased to learn from his staff, White, Voas, and
Augerson, that 24 of the first group interviewed were happy with the prospects of participating in the Mercury program. Every one of the first
10 men interrogated on February 2 agreed to continue through the elimination
process. The next week another group of possible pilot-candidates arrived in Washington. The high rate of volunteering made it unnecessary to extend
the invitations to the third group. Justifying this action, George Low reported:
During the briefings and interviews it became apparent that the final
number of pilots should be smaller than the twelve originally planned for. The high rate of interest in the project indicates that few, if
any, of the men will drop out during the training program. It would, therefore, not be fair to the men to carry along some who would not be
able to participate in the flight program. Consequently, a recommendation has been made to name only six finalists.
Sixty-nine men had reported to Washington in two groups by the middle of
February. Of these, six were found to have grown too tall. Fifty-six pilots
took the initial battery of written tests, technical interviews, psychiatric
interviews, and medical history reviews. Those who declined or were eliminated reduced the total at the beginning of March to 36 men. They were
invited to undergo the extraordinary physical examinations planned for them at the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque. Thirty-two accepted and became
candidates, knowing also that they were scheduled to pass through extreme mental and physical environmental tests at the Wright Air Development
Center, in Dayton, Ohio, after being certified as physically qualified by the Lovelace Clinic. The 32 candidates were assured that the data derived
from these special examinations in New Mexico and Ohio would not jeopardize their military careers, since none of the findings was to go into their
Although the psycho physiological criteria for the selection of the best
possible pilots for manned space flight had been under discussion for several years, the actual arrangement of the selection procedures for
Mercury was directed by a NASA selection committee consisting of a senior management engineer, Donlan; a test pilot engineer, North; two flight
surgeons, White and Augerson; two psychologists, Allen O. Gamble and Voas; and two psychiatrists, George E. Ruff and Edwin Z. Levy.
These seven men had done the screening of records and the interviews and testing in Washington,
constituting phases one and two of the selection program, before remanding their pool of 32 candidates to the medical examiners at the
Individually each candidate arrived at Albuquerque to undergo approximately a week of medical evaluations under each of five different
schedules. In this third phase of the program, over 30 different laboratory
tests collected chemical, encephalographic, and cardiographic data. X-ray examinations thoroughly mapped each man's body. The ophthalmology section
and the otolaryngology sections likewise learned almost everything about each candidate's eyes, and his ears, nose, and throat. Special
physiological examinations included bicycle ergometer tests, a total-body radiation count, total-body water determination, and the specific gravity of
the whole body. Heart specialists made complete cartiological examinations,
and other clinicians worked out more complete medical histories on these men
than probably had ever before been attempted on human beings. Nevertheless the
selectees were so healthy that only one of the 32 was found to have a medical problem potentially serious enough to eliminate him from the
subsequent tests at the Wright Aeromedical Laboratory. Phase four of the selection program was an amazingly elaborate set of
environmental studies, physical endurance tests, anthropometric measurements, and psychiatric studies conducted at the Aeromedical
Laboratory of the Wright Air Development Center. During March each of the 31 subjects spent another week experiencing a wide range of stressful
conditions. Voas explained phases three and four: "While the purpose of the medical examinations at Lovelace Clinic had been to determine the
general health status of the candidates, the purpose of the testing program at Wright Field was to determine the physical and psychological capability
of the individual to respond effectively and appropriately to the various
types of stresses associated with space missions." In addition to pressure suit tests, acceleration tests, vibration tests, heat tests, and loud noise
tests, each candidate had to prove his physical endurance on treadmills, tilt tables, with his feet in ice water, and by blowing up
balloons until exhausted. Continuous psychiatric interviews, the necessity of living with
two psychologists throughout the week, and extensive self-examination through a battery of 13 psychological tests for personality and motivation,
and another dozen different tests on intellectual functions and special aptitudes--these were all part of the week of truth at Dayton.
Two of the more interesting personality and motivation studies seemed like parlor games at first, until it became evident how profound an exercise
in Socratic introspection was implied by conscientious answers to the test questions "Who am I?" and "Whom would you assign to the mission if you could
not go yourself?" In the first case, by requiring the subject to write down
20 definitional identifications of himself, ranked in order of significance,
and interpreted projectively, the psychologists elicited information on identity and perception of social roles. In the peer ratings, each
candidate was asked which of the other members of the group of five accompanying him through this phase of the program he liked best,
which one he would like to accompany him on a two-man mission, and whom he would substitute for himself. Candidates who had proceeded this far
in the selection process all agreed with one who complained, "Nothing is sacred any more."
Back at STG headquarters at Langley, late in March 1959, phase five
began. The final evaluation of data was made by correlating clinical and statistical information from New Mexico and Ohio. Eighteen of the 31
candidates came recommended without medical reservations for final consideration by Donlan and North. According to Donlan, although the
physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, and physiologists had done their best to establish gradations, the attrition rate was too low. So the final
criteria for selecting the candidates reverted to the technical qualifications of the men and the technical requirements of the program, as
judged by Donlan, North, White, and finally Gilruth. "We looked for real men and valuable experience," said Donlan. The selection tests, as it
turned out, were largely tests of tests, "conducted as much for the research
value in trying to formulate the characteristics of astronauts as for
determining any deficiencies of the group being examined." The verbal responses at the interviews, before and after the psychophysiological
testing, therefore, seem to have been as important final determinants as the
candidates' test scores.
Sitting in judgment over 18 finalists, Donlan, White, and North pared
down the final pool of selectees, choosing each to complement the rest of the group. The going was so difficult that they could not reach the magic
number six, so Gilruth decided to recommend seven. Donlan then telephoned each of the seven individually to ask whether he was still willing to accept
a position as a Mercury astronaut. Each one gladly volunteered again. The 24 who were passed over were notified and asked to reapply for
reconsideration in some future program. Gilruth's endorsement of the final list was passed upward to Silverstein and Glennan for final review, and by
mid-April the faces of America's original seven spacemen were shown to the world.
As the astronauts lost their private lives, Project Mercury found its
first great public notice. An eighth military officer and pilot came aboard
STG about the same time to manage the public information and press relations
that were already threatening to intrude on the time and talent of STG. The
eighth personality was an experienced Air Force pilot who had flown extensively in World War II, on the Berlin Airlift, and in Korea, and who
also had proven himself as a public information officer after 1954, when he was charged with ameliorating public fears and complaints over jet noises,
sonic booms, and the ballistic missile programs. Lieutenant Colonel John A.
Powers, USAF, came on board the STG staff in early April 1959. Thereafter the mellifluous voice and impish grin of "Shorty" Powers made his reputation
as the primary buffer for STG in its relations with the press and the public. Throughout the Mercury program, he stood before the news media and
the people of the world as the one living symbol of all the anonymous human effort behind the astronaut of the moment.
Powers propagated some oversimplified images in many instances, as it
was his job to do, but no one man then or now could completely understand or communicate the complexity of the myriad research,
development, and operations activities that lay behind a launch. Then, too,
the caliber of the questions determined the quality of his answers, and all too often the questions asked were simple. What was an astronaut really
like? What did he eat for breakfast? Which ones had been Boy Scouts? How did their wives take their commitment? Such questions provoked many to
abandon asking how these seven came to be chosen and for what purpose they were entering training.
From the United States Marine Corps, Lieutenant Colonel John Herschel Glenn, Jr., received orders to report to the Space Task Group at Langley
Field, on the first of May. He then found himself the senior astropilot in
age and date of rank. From the Navy, Walter Marty Schirra, Jr., and Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr., both lieutenant commanders, and Lieutenant Malcolm
Scott Carpenter reported aboard STG. And the Air Force assigned three captains, Donald Kent Slayton, Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr., and Virgil I.
Grissom, to duty with NASA as test pilots, alias Mercury astronauts. On May 28, 1959, the astronauts were brought before the House Committee
on Science and Astronautics in executive session. They were asked to reassure the Congressmen that they were content with the orderliness,
safety, and seriousness of Project Mercury. This they did vigorously,
together and separately, before Schirra mentioned the "seven-sided coin" of
competition over which one should get the first flight.
The first seven American astronauts were an admirable group of individuals chosen to sit at the apex of a pyramid of human effort. In
training to transcend gravity they became a team of personalities as well as a crew of pilots. They were lionized by laymen and
adored by youth as heroes before their courage was truly tested. In volunteering to entrust their lives to Mercury's spirit and Atlas' strength
to blaze a trail for man into the empyrean, they chose to lead by following the opportunity that chance, circumstance, technology, and history had
prepared for them. Influential 20th-century philosophers as diverse as Bertrand Russell, Teilhard de Chardin, and Walter Kaufmann tell us that
man's profoundest aspiration is to know himself and his universe and that life's deepest passion is a desire to become godlike. All men must balance
their hubris with their humility, but, as one of those aspiring astronauts said, "How could anyone turn down a chance to be a part of something like
this?" Shortly after the astronauts were introduced to the public, a literate
layman asked directions of Mercury for mankind in general: Which way will heaven be then?
Or far within?
The United States' first manned space flight project was successfully
accomplished in a 4 2/3 year period of dynamic activity which saw more than
2,000,000 people from many major government agencies and much of the aerospace industry combine their skills, initiative, and experience into a
national effort. In this period, six manned space flights were accomplished
as part of a 25-flight program. These manned space flights were accomplished with complete pilot safety and without change to the basic
Mercury concepts. It was shown that man can function ably as a pilot-engineer-experimenter without undesirable reactions or deteriorations
of normal body functions for periods up to 34 hours of weightless flight. Directing this large and fast moving project required the development of
a management structure and operating mode that satisfied the requirement to mold the many different entities into a workable structure. The management
methods and techniques so developed are discussed. Other facets of the Mercury experience such as techniques and philosophies developed to insure
well-trained flight and ground crews and correctly prepared space vehicles
are discussed. Also, those technical areas of general application to aerospace activities that presented obstacles to the accomplishment of the
project are briefly discussed. Emphasis is placed on the need for improved detail design guidelines and philosophy, complete and appropriate hardware
qualification programs, more rigorous standards, accurate and detailed test procedures, and more responsive configuration control techniques.
These are excerpts from a NASA book entitled, NASA SP-45, "Mercury
Project Summary, Including Results of the Fourth Manned Orbital Flight, May 15 and 16, 1963. The publication date is October 1963.
2. Also, the Previous are excerpts from "This New Ocean, A History of Project Mercury," NASA SP-4201, by Loyd S. Swenson, Jr., James M.
Grimwood, and Charles C. Alexander. This book was printed in 1966, and it was for sale by
the U.S. Government Printing Office. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number is 66-62424.)
By Walter C. Williams, Deputy Director for Mission Requirements and Flight
Operations, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center; Kenneth S. Kleinknecht, Manager, Mercury Project, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center; William M. Bland, Jr.,
Deputy Manager, Mercury Project, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center; and James E.
Bost, Chief, Engineering Operations Office, Mercury Project Office, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center.