Free "Live From Cape Canaveral": Covering the Space Race, From Sputnik to Today by Jay Barbree Page B

recovery ship, the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain , and lowered itself gently onto the deck. “This is the best carrier landing I’ve ever made,” Shepard laughed.
    He couldn’t wait to tell Deke and Gus and John and Gordo and Scott and Wally all about it.
    They, the Mercury Seven, had done it!

FIVE
John Glenn
    A lan Shepard’s success solidified questions for John Kennedy about America’s efforts in space. The young President knew the difference between American and Russian rockets. He accepted the fact that the Soviets had overwhelming superiority in size and power.
    What the President also had come to realize was that in spite of appearances, the Russians were not ahead of America because they were better at science; it was the exact opposite. The Soviets had their monster boosters because they couldn’t build a smaller nuclear warhead. They needed the giants to get their five-ton, unsophisticated bombs to American targets. Our warheads, with the same destructive power, were much smaller. They needed only a third of the rocket power to reach their destinations.
    For this reason, Kennedy was willing to take the long-range gamble that American science, technology, and industry would persevere and, with clearly defined goals, be able to surpass the Soviets.
    At NBC we learned what the President was up to, and I jumped in. “Americans are going to the moon,” I reported, and my boss, Russ Tornabene, shouted down the phone line, “Barbree, I want you on this. Kennedy is speaking before Congress and it’s your story.”
    Feeling a historic milestone in the making, I covered Kennedy’scongressional address by closed-circuit television from the Cape Canaveral site where future astronauts would lift off for the moon. In ringing tones, the energetic President told an attentive Congress the nation should take longer strides, America should become the leading player in space, and the country should lead the world into a better future:
    I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.
    John F. Kennedy spoke, and Congress leapt to its feet with thundering applause. If the congressional reaction was any sign of the future, then his “new frontier” had absorbed new life and vitality. Despite the “Bay of Pigs” debacle and a rough start, Kennedy was on his way back. He had absolute confidence that this was a gamble his administration could not lose. Americans would be the first on the moon.
     
    T wo months later, Gus Grissom had his Liberty Bell Seven Mercury capsule loaded with one more item than Alan Shepard had had: a parachute.
    “Damn, Gus,” argued NASA engineer Sam Beddingfield. “If you need it, you won’t have time to use it.”
    “Get me the parachute, Sam,” Grissom demanded. “If something goes wrong, it’ll give me something to do until I hit.”
    Beddingfield shook his head but stuffed a parachute in Liberty Bell Seven , and Grissom lifted off from the Mercury-Redstone launch pad on July 21, 1961. His flight was a photocopy of Alan Shepard’s suborbital flight—115 miles up, 300 miles down range. But that’s where any similarities to Shepard’s mission ended.
    Following splashdown, Grissom prepared his Mercury capsule for helicopter recovery. He was lying back, waiting for hookup, when an explosion blasted away his hatch. The hatch, modified to use an explosive primer cord instead of the mechanical locks of Shepard’s capsule, had ignited.
    Water rolled in and Grissom rolled out. He had to swim for his life as he watched the three-thousand-pound spacecraft slip beneath the waves.
    Engineers scratched their heads. Some said the design of the capsule’s hatch made an accidental explosion