The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

The tests at Wright-Patterson were more familiar. They subjected us to the kinds of stresses test pilots could be expected to endure, heightening some of them in an attempt to simulate the thin reaches of space. Again, the doctors were guessing. They injected cold water into our ears as a way to create a condition called nystagmus, in which you can’t keep your eyes focused on one spot, then measured how long it took us to recover. They measured body fat content and rated our body types as endomorphic, ectomorphic, or mesomorphic. They inserted a rectal thermometer; sat us in heat chambers, ran the temperature to 130 degrees Fahrenheit, and clocked the rise in our body temperature and heart rate. We walked on treadmills, stepped repeatedly on and off a twenty-inch step, and rode stationary bicycles. We blew into tubes that measured lung capacity and held our breath as long as we could. We plunged our feet into buckets of ice water while the doctors took blood pressure and pulse measurements. We sat strapped into chairs that shook us like rag dolls. We were assaulted with sound of shifting amplitudes and frequencies that made our flight suits quiver and produced sensations in our bones. We endured blinking strobe lights at frequencies designed to irritate the nervous system. We entered an altitude chamber that simulated sixty-five thousand feet of altitude, with only partial pressure suits and oxygen. We lay on a table that tilted like a slow-motion carnival ride. We pushed buttons and pulled levers in response to flashing lights to test our reaction times. We sat in an anechoic isolation chamber to see how we might endure the vast blackness and silence of space. All the while sensors plastered on our heads and bodies recorded our reactions.

The isolation chamber was simply a dark soundproof room. A technician led me in, seated me at a desk, and turned out the lights when he left. I had no idea if I would be there for fifteen minutes or fifteen hours. I knew the easiest way to make the time pass would be to put my head down and go to sleep. But I suspected that the doctors wanted mental alertness. I opened the desk drawer after a while and found a writing tablet. I had a pencil in my pocket. “Will attempt to keep record of the run,” I wrote on the first page.

By the time the door opened Glenn had scrawled 18 pages. Glenn:

I had moved on to summarizing my thoughts on the isolation experience when the door opened after three hours and the lights came on.

I had been back in Washington two weeks when the phone rang at my desk at BuAer. I answered it and heard Charles Doulan say, “Major Glenn, you’ve been through all the tests. Are you still interested in the program?”

“Yes, I am. Very much,” I said, and held my breath. “Well, congratulations. You’ve made it.”

I don’t remember my response. I know I felt a swell of pride – that I couldn’t help – but I also felt humble at being a small part of a program that was so full of scientific talent and of such importance to the nation.

Hanging up the phone, I was struck by the fact that the call had come on the day it did. It was April 6, my wedding anniversary. Annie and I had been married sixteen years, and that night we had planned to go to dinner at Evans Farm Inn in McLean and a play in downtown Washington in celebration. There was no greater celebration than sharing the news with her. I told her I had no idea where all this would lead, but wherever it was, we were in it together.

The Mercury Astronauts met for the first time at Langley Air Force Base on April 8, 1959. We were seven pilots, three from the Air Force, three from the Navy, and one from the Marines, but none of us were in uniform, and at that time we were still anonymous. I had just received a routine promotion from major to lieutenant colonel, but as astronauts, we all ranked equally. We wore suits, the uniform of our new service, as we milled about with NASA officials and discreetly tried to check out the other men who had been chosen for this new assignment.

Robert Gilruth was the head of NASA’s Space Task Group, which included Project Mercury. Bob had a fringe of thinning white hair and prominent black eyehrows, which gave him a look of Buddha-like wisdom. He was an old-line aerodynamics investigator with a quiet, congenial manner and he stepped to a podium in the room where we had gathered to brief us on how NASA planned to tie us into the project.

“You’re not just short-term hired guns,” he said. “NASA wants the benefit of your experience as test pilots and engineers. Project Mercury is a team, and you’re part of it. This isn’t the military, where direction comes from the top down. We want your direct input. Any problem you have with design, or anything we’re doing, you let me know.