Breaking the Chains of Gravity Read online

  Killian, meanwhile, remained unwavering in his conviction that America would eventually succeed. He recommended to Eisenhower that Vanguard continue since one failure didn’t speak to the program as a whole. Killian also recommended to the president that the Army be given full support and a launch window at the end of January. It was a silver lining to Vanguard’s stunning public failure that thrilled von Braun. His team began preparing their system for launch. Formerly a Jupiter C, the Redstone first stage had been lengthened so the rocket could carry an additional propellant load. Eleven scaled-down Sergeant rockets were arranged in a circle making up the second stage, three for the third stage were nested within the second stage, and one making up the final orbital-insertion stage was stacked atop the third. These smaller rockets were positioned around bulkheads and rings, held together by an external shell making the whole stack sleek and smooth. Topping the stack was a small satellite named Explorer I weighing a little over thirty pounds, eighteen of which were the instrumentation and payload. Von Braun was ready, but he still had to wait for his launch window to open. For the moment, the navy’s Vanguard was still the leading satellite program with another chance to get into orbit first.

  Not to be left out, another air force spaceflight proposal surfaced in the wake of Vanguard’s very public failure. The “Proposal for Future Air Force Ballistic Missile and Space Technology Development” put command of space activities squarely into the hands of the air force’s Ballistic Missile Division that would work under the guidance of the Air Research and Development Command (ARDC). Supporting this future scheme, the ARDC Council in turn met with representatives from the air force Plans and Programming Office, the deputy commander for Research and Development, and the deputy commander for Weapons Systems midway through the month of December to develop a prospective five-year plan for the service’s activities in space. Attending personnel agreed there was nothing more important than an all-out effort to develop America’s space capabilities to overtake Soviet achievements, a program best defined as one that would address the major areas of reconnaissance, weapons delivery, space research and experiments, data transmission, countermeasures to potential Soviet aggression, and finally manned space flights. In reviewing existing technologies, a panel of experts agreed that the X-15 and a follow-up hypersonic boost-glide system akin to Project HYWARDS would be the best next steps in space because pilots would undoubtedly be involved. Human pilots would be vital players in the full exploitation of both the exploratory and military aspects of spaceflight, adept at reacting to new situations and able to manage new vehicles in strange environments better than any robotic system could.

  In the wake of Vanguard’s failure, it wasn’t just internal proposals that were looking ahead at the air force leading the way in space. Half-formed industry proposals were reaching the service as well. AVCO and Convair pitched a joint program wherein an AVCO satellite would launch on a Convair booster. The Martin Company stressed the importance of establishing a manned base on the Moon as the air force’s long-term goal and began floating such an idea to the service. The Aerophysics Development Corporation pitched a program consisting of a series of ballistic test vehicles developed alongside a lunar landing system. Bell Aircraft, the company behind the supersonic X-1, pitched a boost-glide vehicle. The Cook Research Laboratory wanted to construct and manage an air force–controlled orbital space station. General Electric wanted to work with the air force in developing a tracking station to monitor a series of orbiting satellites. Goodyear Aircraft wanted to build a shuttle system to ferry astronauts from the Earth to a manned orbiting laboratory. The Sperry Gyroscope Company wanted to undertake a research program wherein it would launch men on a trajectory that would put them into a state of free fall, gathering data about human factors of spaceflight in the meantime.

  The differences between these proposals were minimal; each used a booster as the launch vehicle, and all but one put the satellite into an elliptical orbit rather than a circular one. All used retrorockets to return the vehicle to Earth with the exception of the AVCO concept, which would use a metallic parachute. But for all the contractor proposals, not one met the necessary requirements. Each industry proposal either failed to take into consideration the full range of human factors involved in spaceflight or failed to account for the whole variety of environments a man and his spacecraft were likely to encounter.

  The silver lining for the ARDC, however, was that this influx of proposals helped narrow down what was important and what was superfluous when designing a spaceflight program. Weighing the proposals against one another did clarify favorable spacecraft configurations; a high drag capsule design with a flared-out bottom to hold the retrorockets, reaction jets, and recovery parachute was found to be the best first step. It quickly became clear that some kind of guidance system would also be vital to the first spacecraft to ensure orbital insertion and retrofire attitude. Without the right alignment the automatic retrofire burn risked sending the satellite away from Earth rather than beginning its fall back to the planet. Available intercontinental ballistic missiles would be the launch vehicles, modified as needed to meet the demands of a specific mission.

  Some details were forcibly informed by existing knowledge. The landing methods were still up for debate, both runway landings and ocean splashdowns were attractive options. Materials, too, remained undefined, though the lightweight and strong Inconel X was a leading contender. The result of this investigation was the realization that manned spaceflight wasn’t impossible given the state of technology. But what taking on a space program might do to the air force and its missile program was a separate question.

  The NACA, meanwhile, ran its own studies of potential spaceflight programs at the same time as the air force under the guidance of Hugh Dryden. The NACA’s participation served to widen the scope of the manned spaceflight project with the idea that the eventual program would be run the same way the two agencies comanaged the X-15. Each would bring its specific expertise to the problem at hand ultimately strengthening the product. But this arrangement also promised to make the NACA the governing body in spaceflight, something the air force wasn’t keen on. For the NACA, the guidelines of its internal study were the same as those the air force followed, taking into consideration ongoing aviation and missile programs. Specifically, no space program the NACA backed could interfere with the X-15, the X-15B, or the hypersonic boost-glide program. These three programs were considered vital in their own right and important enough to continue to run in tandem.

  This sudden burst of interest in manned spaceflight came to a head on January 7, 1958. More than 330 delegates from across the air force met at the Southern Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland, to discuss how the Air Research and Development Command might be reorganized to accommodate a new astronautics and space program. The meeting ended with plans that would see the air force’s budget and long-term goals revised to include space goals through 1959, a commitment to programs that would produce viable results in this field, and a corresponding plan to limit the number of active programs to ensure success of those most important to the service’s long-term goals. Ultimately, however, the new emphasis on space couldn’t take away from the ongoing weapons development programs. At the end of the day, the air force was in the defense business and it would have to sell space to the Department of Defense if it wanted to see these programs get off the ground, and that meant not sacrificing the larger goals of the service.

  At the same time, the air force’s own multistage approach to spaceflight that had been passed over months earlier was suddenly back on the table. “An Estimate of Future Space Vehicle Evolution Based upon a Projected Technical Capability” was recast as the “Wright Air Development Center Long Range Research and Development Plans” and was modified to better address the Soviet Sputniks and incorporate a host of possible Americans’ responses. The program reached the Air Research and Development Command headquarters before making its way to the Pentagon.

  While the
air force was talking about going into space, the army was taking its steps toward orbit. The Redstone RS-29, packed away more than a year earlier, was moved to Cape Canaveral and preparations for launch got underway alongside the second Vanguard attempt. Four times the Naval Research Laboratory counted down to launch another Vanguard satellite and four times weather or technical problems forced a launch cancellation while the army and von Braun sat by and watched. Finally, on January 29, the navy stepped aside and the army’s three-day launch window opened. The rocket was erected on the launchpad, but its designer wasn’t there. Under Medaris’s orders, von Braun was in Washington, a personal frustration but a professional necessity. If the satellite did reach orbit, von Braun would need to speak at a press conference; his team could handle the technical end of things at the cape.

  On the evening of January 31, 1958, von Braun arrived with a small cohort at the army’s communications center at the Pentagon in Washington. The room gradually filled with military personnel, civilians, and representatives from the National Academy of Sciences’ IGY committee. RS-29, renamed as Jupiter C, stood waiting 863 miles away, but the men in Washington couldn’t see it. There was no closed-loop television system connecting the Pentagon to Cape Canaveral. Instead, a simple teletype machine projected updates on a screen and a small bank of telephones connected the room to the outside world.

  The night wore on and the gathered men listened to radio reports as the launch was briefly held for a hydrogen peroxide leak. They watched as news appeared on the teletype screen. Von Braun anxiously read the progress reports: X minus one minute; X minus twenty seconds; X minus ten seconds. Then, finally: Firing commands; Mainstage; Liftoff; Program is starting; Still going. The lackadaisical updates were in direct contrast to the excitement building in the room. Ninety seconds after liftoff, the teletype related that the rocket had passed through the jet stream. The first stage cut off 156 seconds after launch and the teletype confirmed that the second stage had fired. But there was no confirmation that the third or fourth stages had come to life.

  Von Braun had to wait for tracking stations to pick up the signal from the satellite for this vital information. He knew where Explorer I was supposed to be at what time after launch if it reached orbit, and the signals picked up by the tracking stations would confirm whether or not it had succeeded. The atmosphere in the army’s communications center at the Pentagon was thick with tension as the men waited for an hour and a half, distracting themselves with coffee, cigarettes, and doughnuts.

  The expected time to acquire the signal from Explorer I came and went with nothing but agonizing silence. Then, after eight tense minutes of quiet, nearly simultaneous calls came from four tracking stations on the West Coast confirming they had acquired the signal from Explorer I. The army had put a satellite into orbit. Instantly the mood shifted from worry to jubilation, bringing hardened military veterans to tears.

  America had a satellite in orbit, but the diminutive Explorer I didn’t quite level the playing field with the Soviet Union. The United States was still lagging in space, and exploring this new frontier with satellites and manned spacecraft promised to be a difficult challenge. Yet what was once the far-off future of starry-eyed engineers was suddenly around the corner, and everyone vying to build a satellite or run a space program knew that the next steps would set the tone for America’s future in space.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Fight to Control Space

  Though he had shown remarkable composure when addressing the nation from his White House offices and had publicly denied any feelings of fear over the Soviet Sputnik satellites, President Dwight Eisenhower was privately relieved when he learned that the U.S. Army’s Explorer I satellite was in orbit. Eisenhower had spent the evening at his cottage near the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, an evening punctuated by updates on the launch from his staff. It was his staff secretary general Andrew Goodpaster who told the president that the Jupiter C’s second stage had fired. From that point on, like von Braun, Eisenhower had spent a tense hour waiting for confirmation on the satellite’s fate. It was White House press secretary Jim Hagerty who had brought the welcome news on Explorer I.

  The elated president tempered his excitement for the moment. Let’s not make a big hullabaloo over this, he told Hagerty; Eisenhower was keen to avoid any backlash from a boastful pronouncement of American success. The small satellite was a step for the nation in space, but he also knew it was only the first in what promised to be a massive undertaking. The slow and methodical exploration of what lay beyond the atmosphere would be a costly venture whose success would hinge on a new way of managing such a large project. It was clear that sooner rather than later the nation would need a dedicated group to manage these activities.

  One week later in early February 1958 Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy announced the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), a new agency within the Department of Defense that would manage all space initiatives with any intrinsic military value. As the head of this new agency, McElroy appointed an executive vice president from General Electric named Roy W. Johnson. Johnson in turn singled out the air force as the military branch most likely to manage a future space program, gaining and securing a strong foothold in this new field for the nation. The air force’s Atlas missile then under development was the largest missile in America’s arsenal and the best chance for launching a larger payload than the diminutive Explorer I satellite. But more than missile power, Johnson recognized that the air force was also the national leader in human factors relating to spaceflight.

  Definitive proof of this had come on August 18, 1957, when Simons had climbed into the air force’s Manhigh gondola at the Winzen Research plant in Minneapolis, Minnesota. By ten o’clock that night, he was moving swiftly through the prelaunch checklist. There had been some significant alterations to the capsule leading up to this second flight to correct the problems that had affected Joe Kittinger’s mission. The oxygen regulation and communications systems had been largely overhauled, and a more sophisticated telemetry system had been retrofitted into the gondola to better monitor Simons’s breathing, heart rate, and body temperature. The countdown moved forward. Thirty-seven minutes past midnight, Manhigh II was loaded on the back of a truck and Simons settled into the capsule for the 150-mile drive to the launch site in a deep open mining pit in Crosby. The flight surgeon managed only brief naps during the nearly five-hour-long drive; the dry ice cooling system on top of the capsule combined with the early morning chill made the gondola uncomfortably cold.

  Launch preparations resumed once the capsule was at the launch site. The Sun rose over the pit, shedding light on the tense scene as minor problems threatened to cause major delays. As the balloon was slowly filled with a small amount of helium, reefing sleeves kept the plastic bubble contained and protected against a sudden gust of wind. But one sleeve tore loose, binding the balloon at one point some thirty feet above the ground. Knowing the material had to be freed before the mission could launch, Vera Winzen volunteered to climb a ladder solely supported by ropes and deftly cut the snagged band free with a pair of scissors. The situation resolved, the countdown continued. When ground winds got stronger, the crew picked up and carried the capsule and its semi-inflated balloon to the other side of the launch pit to ensure Simons wasn’t blown directly into the nearby mountains.

  Finally, after years of waiting and working behind the scenes on biomedical programs, Simons lifted off at nine twenty-two in the morning. He vented gas to control his ascent speed, all the while photographing and describing the view of the planet as it unfurled below him. Simons was mesmerized by the eerie quiet and gradually blackening skies, the likes of which he had never seen before. After two hours and eighteen minutes, Manhigh II reached 105,000 feet. From that altitude, Simons had had the sensation of bouncing like a ball in slow motion over an endless grid of farmlands crisscrossed by country roads, all following the curvature of the Earth.

  Simons was ju
st getting started on his astronomical observations when he got an unwelcome call from Otto Winzen. Manhigh II had lost its high frequency radio, Winzen said, meaning ground crews weren’t getting any telemetry on Simons in the capsule. And, continued the German balloon engineer, it was likely that whatever had caused this failure would damage his voice communications system before long, too. Simons considered his options, whether or not he wanted to abort the flight while Winzen and John Paul Stapp waited for the doctor’s decision. Simons reasoned that since he was physically alone floating more than one hundred thousand feet above the Earth, losing voice communications wouldn’t have a marked effect on his isolation. Looking around the capsule, it seemed like all his other systems were working perfectly. Unwilling to throw away years of work and his one chance to pilot his own mission, Simons opted to stay aloft and gather as much data as possible. His scientific determination won out.

  Though his systems were in good working order aside from the lost radio, Simons’s flight soon took a turn. Planned to last a full day, the doctor was forced to extend his stay in the stratosphere when clouds rolled in over his landing area, threatening his descent. Simons conferred with tracking parties on the ground and in airborne craft, determining from multiple vantage points whether or not it was safe to attempt a descent. The clouds eventually broke and Simons was able to guide Manhigh II to the ground. He finally touched down just past five thirty in the evening in an alfalfa field near Frederick in northeast South Dakota. In spite of problems and an unforeseen elongated flight plan, the mission was deemed a success. And for his part, Simons was thrilled to have a working system on his hands that could keep a man alive for more than a full day in a space-like environment.