In last week's Part 1, I discussed the background of Glenn's historic flight and what America expected. This week, the focus is on the flight itself.
The sum total of the computing power of Friendship 7 was, using a generous term, small. By today’s standards, microscopic would be more appropriate. The majority of the computing during the slightly less than 5-hour flight was done at Goddard Space Center in Maryland. The amount of technology available to Glenn was far less than a 2015 smartphone. Or as one comment made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the flight reads:
It's amazing to think that a smartphone you can read this on hundreds of times the computing power than was involved in the whole Friendship project.
Here’s the link to a detailed discussion of the Mercury capsule. The close-up photos are sobering.
ASIDE
If you didn’t see the film, “Hidden Figures,” I recommend that you take the time to view it. While I knew about some of what was going on in parts of the United States regarding ethnic equality, this movie showcases the issue while focusing on the preparation and the flight itself.
“Hidden Figures” is, according to reliable sources I’ve read, presents racial discrimination as part of the culture in the area where NASA’s facility was located. Until I saw the film, I had no idea of the prejudice and bigotry the women involved in doing critical calculations lived. I leave this aspect of this event with this quote from the link above.
“For NASA to get John Glenn into space and home safely, institutions that supported prejudices and biases needed to start tumbling down. All hands (and brains) had to be on deck.”
Also because of the film, the deficiencies in my memories as a 12-years-old of the experience, I learned that the mission was cut short and that Friendship 7 was under Glenn’s control far longer than anticipated. NASA wasn’t sure that the capsule would survive the descent through the atmosphere. I suspect little if any of the problems were presented to the media until after Glenn was home safely.
Back to our regularly scheduled programming…
We watched the splashdown on television at school.
Splashdown. That’s what they called all the Mercury and Apollo landings. The small spacecraft crashed into the ocean. Parachutes slowed the descent somewhat, but the astronauts splashed into the sea at high speed. Inflatable bags—labeled RECOVERY AIDS in the diagram—deployed and a beacon began transmitting.
Over a dozen Navy vessels were in the general area of the planned splashdown. At least one had to arrive before the minimal flotation system failed and the capsule—most probably with the astronaut inside—would sink into the briny deep.
According to the New York Daily News the day after the event:
But the astronaut, who had maintained part-manual control of the space capsule for the last two orbits, dropped gently to a safe parachute landing in the Atlantic 800 miles southeast of this launch site.
Remaining inside the capsule, Glenn was swiftly picked up by the destroyer Noa, a recovery ship stationed a scant six miles from the spot where the spacecraft touched down at 2:43 P.M.
Wikipedia portrays a slightly more time-distant perspective.
A chart printed in the NASA publication Results of the First United States Manned Orbital Space Flight, Feb. 20, 1962, relates that the spacecraft splashed down in the Atlantic at coordinates near 21°20′N 68°40′W, 40 miles (60 km) short of the planned landing zone. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Atlas_6 - cite_note-11
Retrofire calculations had not taken into account spacecraft weight loss from the depletion of onboard consumables. The USS Noa, a destroyer code-named Steelhead, had spotted the spacecraft when it was descending on its parachute. The destroyer was about six miles (10 km) away when it radioed Glenn that it would reach him shortly. The Noa came alongside Friendship 7 seventeen minutes later.
What the USA showed was the ability to put a man in orbit and bring him back alive. We were all sure that America would easily meet President Kennedy’s ten-year timeline to reach the surface of the moon.
I was the proudest kid at Spring Valley Elementary School that day. After all, it happened on my birthday!
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