The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

Mercury Control had chosen an awkward moment to troubleshoot the (intermittently) malfunctioning ASCS. They wanted an attitude check, at dawn, over a featureless ocean while I was busily engaged with the dawn-related work specified in my flight plan. Again, adequate checks for attitude, particularly in yaw, are difficult enough in full daylight over recognizable land terrain, requiring precious minutes of continuous attention to the view of the ground out your periscope and the window. In my postflight report I explained the difficulty.

Manual control of the spacecraft yaw attitude using external references has proven to be more difficult and time-consuming than pitch and roll alignment, particularly as external lighting diminishes… Ground terrain drift provided the best daylight reference in yaw. However, a terrestrial reference at night was useful in controlling yaw attitudes only when sufficiently illuminated by moonlight. In the absence of moonlight, the pilot reported that the only satisfactory yaw reference was a known star complex nearer the orbital plane.

But Mercury Control had requested an attitude check, and I complied, first reporting that I had to get back within “scanner limits,” that is, to an attitude in which the horizon was visible to the pitch horizon scanner. That required more maneuvering, which required more fuel. I was still trying to cram in more observations.

Capcom asked: “Can we get a blood pressure from you, Scott?”

I sent the blood pressure, reported on the transmission, and continued voice reports on the experiments: the behavior of the “fireflies”; the balloon, still shadowing Aurora 7 like a stray animal, was oscillating some. Just before LOS, I reported I was going to “gyros normal. Gyros normal now.” Hawaii Capcom replied: “Roger, TM [telemetry] indicates your-zero pitch.” And then “LOS, Scott, we’ve had LOS.”

Loss of signal. I was moving on to voice contact with Al Shepard, California Capcom, and approaching the start of my final, most perilous circumnavigation of the planet.

Kris Stoever continued:

The pilot of Aurora 7 speeded toward California, where Al Shepard was capcom, in charge of ground communications. Scott first gave Al his short report on fuel, cabin-air temperature, and control mode (“manual, gyros normal, maneuver off”). But then the important issue: the suit steam-exhaust temperatures. They were “still reading,” he told Al dispiritedly, “70 degrees.”

But Al had good news:

“Understand you’re GO for orbit three.”

While the GO business was nice to hear, it was really hot in the cabin, and Scott still had lots of work to do. As it happened, more than the MA-7 cabin temperatures were hot. From all reports, Kraft was full-out fuming as Scott approached the continental United States. The flight director appears to have concluded, erroneously, that the pilot of MA-7 had deliberately ignored his request for an attitude check over Hawaii. Now, in addition to his anxieties about fuel use, Kraft was nursing a grudge about a snub that never took place.

In his memoir, he writes that as Carpenter approached California, he directed Al Shepard, the California Capcom, to set things right. Al’s new job, Kraft told the famously self-possessed Navy commander, was “to find what the hell was going on up there,” adding that he left the California Capcom with “no doubt” about his “frustration” with Carpenter. Kraft was in fact bellowing through the earpieces of Al’s headset.

The flight director told Al he needed two things from Scott: an attitude check and a tight curb on fuel use. In an exercise of judgment as California Capcom, Shepard relayed just one of Kraft’s two requests:

“General Kraft is still somewhat concerned about your auto fuel. Use as little auto – use no auto fuel unless you have to prior to retrosequence time.”

Shepard then turned to the matter at hand, which was the heat in the cabin and an apparently malfunctioning heat exchanger in Scott’s suit. He suggested another, more comfortable setting. He omitted Kraft’s request for an attitude check. Al then did unto Scott as he hoped others might one day to unto him, offered the pilot a little time, a little quiet, and some encouragement:

“Roger. You’re sounding good here. Give you a period of quiet while I send Z and R cal.”

The two men carried out these quiet space chores over the next three and a half minutes. Then Al gathered information. Either he knew enough to ask, or he was prompted by the flight surgeon:

“Do you – have you… have you stopped perspiring at the moment?”

No, Scott told him, he was “still perspiring.” A good sign. No impending heat stroke. Catching the drift of the conversation, Scott reported he might open his visor “and take a drink of water.”

Capcom acknowledged: “Roger. Sounds like a good idea.”

He let Scott drink. Sixteen quiet seconds passed. Then Al asked a question. Note the man’s impeccable manners:

“Seven, would you give us a blood pressure, please, in between swallows.”