Free Then Will The Great Ocean Wash Deep Above (Apollo Quartet) by Ian Sales
Authors: Ian Sales
the film stacks had disintegrated, leaving only seven strips of film between three and six feet in length. These were carefully transported to an Eastman Kodak processing plant in Rochester, New York, but the company was unable to salvage any usable imagery from them.
The Trieste II continued in active service with the Pacific Fleet until 1980. In May 1984, she was retired and moved to Submarine Development Group 1. In 1985, Trieste II was moved to the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington, where she currently resides.
Picture credits: Trieste pressure-sphere (US Naval Historical Center); KH-4B Corona film recovery manoeuvre (National Reconnaissance Office); Trieste II in the USS White Sands’ dock well (OAR/National Undersea Research Program); USS Apache and USS White Sands (US Navy).
TOP
On 9 April 1959, NASA introduced seven men to the world. They were the first American astronauts, the Mercury 7: Alan Shepard, Virgil ‘Gus’ Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Walter M Schirra, L Gordon Cooper and Donald ‘Deke’ Slayton. NASA wanted to beat the USSR to put a man into space, but the Soviets won when, on 12 April 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth. Alan Shepard, the first American into space, made a sub-orbital hop on 5 May aboard the Freedom 7 Mercury spacecraft.
NASA had known for at least two years that the Soviets planned to put a woman into space, but showed no interest in matching the accomplishment, and in fact disingenuously insisted the organisation was not in a “race” with the USSR.
And yet, in late 1959, three separate schemes had set about evaluating women as astronauts.
In August of that year, fifty-eight-year-old pioneer aviatrix Ruth Rowland Nichols underwent centrifuge and weightlessness testing at the Air Research and Development Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Although too old to ever be a serious candidate for astronaut, Nichols was determined to prove she had what it took.
In September 1959 at the annual Air Force Association convention in Miami, Florida, Brigadier General Donald D Flickinger, USAF and Dr W Randolph “Randy” Lovelace II were introduced to a young female pilot called Jerrie Cobb. Flickinger immediately realised she was an ideal candidate for his Project Woman In Space Earliest, also based at Wright-Patterson.
The third was a publicity stunt, arranged with NASA’s full cooperation. During October and November 1959, Betty Skelton, a famous aerobatic pilot and multiple record-holder—on her death in 2011, she still held more combined automobile and aviation records than any other person—underwent a series of tests by NASA scientists for Look magazine, who published the results in their 2 Feb 1960 issue under the title “Should a Girl Be First in Space?”. The article was not a serious attempt at determining Skelton’s fitness for the Mercury programme, although she did demonstrate she was a match for the male astronauts.
Unfortunately, when news of Nichols’ testing was made public, and she rightly pointed out the medical establishment’s lack of knowledge on the workings of the female body, Wright-Patterson Aeromedical Laboratory head Colonel John Paul Stapp (of rocket-sled fame) persuaded ARDC to close down Flickinger’s Project WISE. Stapp considered women physiologically and emotionally unable to handle spaceflight: “Economically, the cost of putting a woman into space is prohibitive, and strictly a luxury item we can ill afford.” One year later, finding it impossible to find work as a pilot and still dreaming of space flight, Nichols took her own life.
Unable to use the facilities at Wright-Patterson, Flickinger handed over Project WISE to Lovelace. On 14 February 1960, Cobb reported to the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and underwent the same six days of testing given to the candidates for the Mercury programme. NASA had already
The Trieste II continued in active service with the Pacific Fleet until 1980. In May 1984, she was retired and moved to Submarine Development Group 1. In 1985, Trieste II was moved to the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington, where she currently resides.
Picture credits: Trieste pressure-sphere (US Naval Historical Center); KH-4B Corona film recovery manoeuvre (National Reconnaissance Office); Trieste II in the USS White Sands’ dock well (OAR/National Undersea Research Program); USS Apache and USS White Sands (US Navy).
TOP
On 9 April 1959, NASA introduced seven men to the world. They were the first American astronauts, the Mercury 7: Alan Shepard, Virgil ‘Gus’ Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Walter M Schirra, L Gordon Cooper and Donald ‘Deke’ Slayton. NASA wanted to beat the USSR to put a man into space, but the Soviets won when, on 12 April 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth. Alan Shepard, the first American into space, made a sub-orbital hop on 5 May aboard the Freedom 7 Mercury spacecraft.
NASA had known for at least two years that the Soviets planned to put a woman into space, but showed no interest in matching the accomplishment, and in fact disingenuously insisted the organisation was not in a “race” with the USSR.
And yet, in late 1959, three separate schemes had set about evaluating women as astronauts.
In August of that year, fifty-eight-year-old pioneer aviatrix Ruth Rowland Nichols underwent centrifuge and weightlessness testing at the Air Research and Development Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Although too old to ever be a serious candidate for astronaut, Nichols was determined to prove she had what it took.
In September 1959 at the annual Air Force Association convention in Miami, Florida, Brigadier General Donald D Flickinger, USAF and Dr W Randolph “Randy” Lovelace II were introduced to a young female pilot called Jerrie Cobb. Flickinger immediately realised she was an ideal candidate for his Project Woman In Space Earliest, also based at Wright-Patterson.
The third was a publicity stunt, arranged with NASA’s full cooperation. During October and November 1959, Betty Skelton, a famous aerobatic pilot and multiple record-holder—on her death in 2011, she still held more combined automobile and aviation records than any other person—underwent a series of tests by NASA scientists for Look magazine, who published the results in their 2 Feb 1960 issue under the title “Should a Girl Be First in Space?”. The article was not a serious attempt at determining Skelton’s fitness for the Mercury programme, although she did demonstrate she was a match for the male astronauts.
Unfortunately, when news of Nichols’ testing was made public, and she rightly pointed out the medical establishment’s lack of knowledge on the workings of the female body, Wright-Patterson Aeromedical Laboratory head Colonel John Paul Stapp (of rocket-sled fame) persuaded ARDC to close down Flickinger’s Project WISE. Stapp considered women physiologically and emotionally unable to handle spaceflight: “Economically, the cost of putting a woman into space is prohibitive, and strictly a luxury item we can ill afford.” One year later, finding it impossible to find work as a pilot and still dreaming of space flight, Nichols took her own life.
Unable to use the facilities at Wright-Patterson, Flickinger handed over Project WISE to Lovelace. On 14 February 1960, Cobb reported to the Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and underwent the same six days of testing given to the candidates for the Mercury programme. NASA had already
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