MA-9 Press Conference

8/7/2019 MA-9 Press Conference

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MAY 19, 1963

MA-9 PRESS CONFERENCE

HANEY Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my pleasure to present Dr. RobertC. Seamans, Associate Administrator of NASA.SEAMANS: I know I'm looking forward to Major Cooper's account of hisfamous and very, very exciting trip in Faith 7. I'm sure you areall looking forward to his account. The flight of Faith 7 representsan extremely important milestone in this nation's exploration of space.Our total space program has as its objective the making of this country--the placing of this country in a preeminent position in space. In Faith7 we have had the opportunity to make interesting scientific measure-ments, to further advance our technology and to carry out a complexoperation. The scientific measurements included some very outstandingphotographs, radiation measurements, and, of course, gave the lifesciences an opportunity to observe a man in space for a protactedperiod of time. In the area of advancing our technology, we were ableto try out some new equipment, for example, the TV camera. We were ableeject into orbit a flashing light and to observe its performance and

*~ we were able to try out some modifications to our life support equip-ment, Operationally, we launched within a few minutes of the intendedtime, we went into a normal orbit, and, thanks to Major Cooper, therecovery point was within a few miles of the intended position. Now,

* this is, as I say, a very important milestone, but we still have a longway to go. We will find that, in the future, we'll be able to make in-creasingly more interesting scientific measurements with man in space.We have, in the future, the development of large boosters and spacecraftwhich will stay in orbit for lonper periods of time and, operationally,we launch, not within minutes but within seconds of the desired timeand, once in space, we must learn to maneuver and to rendezvous and todock, Now these flights don't just happen. They involve a tremendousf amount of teamwork, and we have here, today, the Director of the MannedSpacecraft Center who's been responsible for all the Mcrcury flightsand who's responsible for all the planninp and development work thatwill lead to future, more exciting flights, Dr. Robert Gilruth. Wealso have here the man who is the Deputy Director of the Manned Space-craft Center, and is also the Director of the flight missions for all

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the man who makes tne final dettermination as to whethe' we po or donot go, to whether we brinp back an astronaut fror space or let himpc for the full duration, iVr. Wa te r WillS a- We also have MajolCooper, a mdn whc neec's no irtroduction. ji' t like to say to him,or to repeat what I saw on one of the posters vie came along theroad, "Welccne back tO plarnet !:drth."'

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I'd like to start out first by introducing a few of the peoplehere in the front row, I think starting first over the corner willGeneral and Mrs. Davis stand up, please, Mrs. Walter Williams, MrsSeamans. Mrs. Bob Gilruth, And my wife and daughter, Trudy, Cam andJan, Wally and Jo Schirra and Rene Carpenter to stand. ScottyCarpenter was unable to'get here because of an illness in the familyand sent his apologies and I would like for you to know that we wouldhave liked to have had him here but we understand perfectly. Margeand D'.ke Slayton. Dr. and Mrs., Debus, Just a moment and I'll skipon back to keen !n the Astronauts Section here - Gus and Betty Grissom.Al and Louise Shepard. Now I think I could keep on here practicallyall afternoon long, I have so ma..y friend here and people that I con-sider absolutely key people that I believe we could take up the wholeafternoon going thru theme There is one gentleman here that has beena tremendous help to all of us, a friend as well as an advisor, as wellas a personal and dear friend, I'd like to ask introduce Mr, C, LeoD'Orsay.

I'm sure I've overlooked a lot of people and my apologies if Ihave. As I look over the room I know that I know most of you in thelast four years we've all worked pretty closely together. Admittedlywe are all in different fields of endeavor but I think we are allAmericans working toward a common goal and as such I think we are allpretty dedicated to the space program and to its success in thiscountry. I think that those of you who know me and know that I'vealways spoken honestly and straightforward to you I want to do sotoday. I'll run thru the flight plan very briefly and very factuallyand when I get the questions I will honestly try to answer any questionsyou have asked, If I can't answer them, if I don't answer them it willbe because I don't know the answer or we don't have the data yet andthey will be answered at a later date. This is a public program, apeaceful scientific program and we have honestly endeavored to try andmake completely available to come one come all on all the information.I would like to start out pre-launch, I think that we had an almostideal day, everything in the way of suiting up and the suit handlersand getting prepared with the suit on, the sensors and getting downto the pad went extremely smoothly. I think that the total count ofthe booster and the spacecraft count went almost ideally. We had nomajur hitches this day, we had one very small hold, technical holdin which we made up most of the count and I believe we launched approximatethree minutes, four minutes late , whic.. was pretty dog&one cLose.I might say that GDA came thru with a real afterburner there andCal Fohler did a wonderful job down there on the condole and lift-offwas very smooth, I was surprised that it was not rougher and morevibration, I think I immediately felt right at home in the bird andfelt like we were really on th e way, Thru the launch portion I guessI expected th e max 0 area to be a little mere vibration, it was not,it was increased in noise in some slight vibration but lot less thanI had expected. The booeter engine cut-off was just as I had thnught{c would be, right on time, the entire sustainer BOY was right cnthe money. It was a very, very smooth custainer, no motion to it that


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I could detect at all. I felt as if I was right iut on the point ofa needle being put riint to the targdt, I was, it was almost a perfectinsertion. Turn around was as I had expected. 7urned around on fly=by--wire and as I got turned around with th e facing with the wlndow facingback to th e west that was the Dooster alr.DLt close enough to touch, Itwas quite a sight and I did tracking on the instruments momentarily andit was close enough that I could read the writing on tne side and Icould see the big w.'ide belly band of frost around the middle, It waspointed almost as exactlv as I had left it, it movea off perhaps 10 to15 degrees angle, that was all, It was slowly dropping down and slightlyto the rear as I moved down to my orbital attitude so that it stayedright in the middle of the window. As I got on down to the proper

attitudefor automatic control I went to automatic, pulled the 16mm camera out ofthe instrument bracket and snapped off a few pictures of the booster withthe East coast of the United States in the background, Unfortunately, itwas a wide angle lens so I don't know how well this will come out.Probably not too effective, Proceeding on with the flight plan. I'llskip around in the middle the little minor details we had numerous timeswe- had such as putting data on the tape, sending blood pressures, runningthru the various relay systems checks as this point seeing if all ourrelays had latched in, turning on TV for the Canary Islands. I found tharit was fairly strategic to have this first orbit not too cluttered up S'abthings to do. It was a strange environment, I think it too'; a shcrt num')of minutes to collect ones wits to got the fl ight plan organized and toreally get squared away and to starting

into a fairly intensive flihtplan. Passing on into the earth's


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Passing on into the first night side, I saw -he haze layer thatWally Schirra

described several degrees above the edrth, the sky was clear and then a band5-8 degrees wide on above this where the stars were dim and the lesser magnitudedisappeared they passed behind. On above this Then clear night sky was filledwith bright stars, Over Australia on the first night sky we checked out thecommand radio system, the command tone system to wake me up in case I overslept,tried out the oaltemperature for the first time over Canton Islands and it wassuccessfulg far preferable to the old temperature gauge we had. On the firstlight of the first nighttime, I saw John Glenn's fireflies coming at the space-craft and they were proceeding to move back along the flight path through space.They were bright and they had a very, very fauit greenish tint to them. At thispoint they looked very familiar as I heard thael often described. At this pointI knew more than I d d before about where they were coming from but they were there.On through T got a go-no-go decision to proceed on and at the beginning of orbit2 cased the gyros and fired down the spacecraft and went into drifting flight.' found this was a very pleasant mode of flight, very relaxing, no problems atall on worrying or wondering what your attitude was - you tend to become theoneter of 'ocus on the flight and you relate everything to the spacecraft as towhat you can see from the,window, Everything proceeded on normally through therestill recording data on the tape at varicus intervals and status reports intothe tape, did some blood pressure exercise-blood pressure over Muchea. I sawthe moon at about this noint and it was Ln the 4rong place for my star chart andI was convinced they had fouled up and rut it in the wrong place, but suddenlyrealized I was facing around to the Ease andhad to add fifty minutes on'to mystar chart to have thb-proper location and found the moon was, indeed, in theright plane. On through this night side ....................................Sometime in this secoid orbit and I don't have it listed right here as to theexact time I dropped off into my first nap urneypectedly and I slept for a veryperiod time and woke up having slept so soundly for these few minutes I didn'tknow at first where I was. I found that I had been asleep quite soundly and sothat ended the question of whether you could sleep in space. On to three hours,I powered up the ASCS AC Buss and coming out into the day side, I lined thespacecraft visually with Earth referenc', 1 founJ this was no problemat all, f could determine yaw quite accurately to a small number of degrees towithin plus or minus one degree I thought and got my automatic pilot back on thefine with standard operation. Seated on around at 3 hours and 25 minutes, wentto back fly-by-wire off the autor:Atic system, pulled up a minus 20 degrees bytick mark on the window and armed my system and deployed for the first time fromthe satellite another satellite. I ejezted the flashing light sometimes referred

* to as shot put and it, I feel it really took off. On through then into the first( night side after deployment, at 3 hours and 40 minutes came into the first nightside after leploying the flashing light, I maneuvered the spacecraft around on thefly-by-wire system and was facing with the window at the small end forward back tothe East and I tried and tried and tried this night side to see the flashing light,to no success, The night was not in vain, however, we set a few blood pressuresand reccrded a few datas. And on through into the dat side following this, in whichI still was trying to see it, we were running some checks on the TV transmitter tosee if our tele etry could be sent over v tV -, tter. This was successful - ,was, in fact, a good telemetry transmitter as well as TV transmitter. Checked outthe CW code to see f we could send code as back up system from space flight. At4 hours end 54 minutes, ate four brownies and drank six gulps of water. waI stilltrying to observe the flashing beacon on the day side to no success. I did someradiation measurements, rec(rded some more data-onboard data- on temperatures andthis typo of thing on to the tape, and on into the second night side after flashinglight deployment, At 5 hours and 20 minutes, I observed this light comirg up from


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below me on the ground, the earth was dark in the background, I could see thehorizon with the haze. layer above it and the stars and I observed this light thatI thought someone was launching something out in front of me was what it reallylooked like at first. I didn't think they'd do that, but it persisted in comingup in relation to where I was, it was down below me against the earth and graduallyrose up and as I watched it I finally saw that little rascal strobing. and it wasthe flashing beacon and so I yawed off from it then after I identified it positivelyand observed it for a mcment and to see if I could pick it up again after havingbeen away from it in yaw for a while. At 5 hours and 40 minutea, I st.rted veryslow yaw rate back in the direction of my 180 yaw or fall in towards the Eastpoint and there was the strobing light again towards the end of the night side.I recorded this and I apparently dropped off asleep immediately following and Iwas awakened by some very nice music on my high frequency 3et, followed by thelanguage that was foreign to me, I don't know what it was. I thought it was anews type cast and I thought I beard my name in it. It proceeded on very normallyon the flight plan on the


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very normally on the flight plan, on the blood pressures, consumablereadout. I ate and drank at the end of six hours and 15 minutes. On thestart of orbit 5, I turned off the cabin fan, turned off the cabin cooling and atartedthe experiment on the cabin to see if we actually need to utilize allthis coolant quantity throughout flight when you're powered down. Imight add that we did not. The temperatures remained very reasonablerange in the cockpit and we left the coolant flow ane cabin far offuntil just prior to reentry and we powered up cooling it down veryslightly. On throupn to the third nightside, after launching the beacon,the additional satellite and I was sure -- I wasn't sure at this timethat all of a sudden there it was about two-thirds, a little overhalf way through the third nightside, still out there strobinp, althoughquite adistame aHy, neither the flashing light experiment - it still could beseen. It went on normally from here on through the next day side, Icame out at zero, alined the spacecraft, came back on the autopower,opened the clamp that we have on a new device that we affectionatlycall the tin-can , which is water separator device which is added into

'* the suit circuit,and left it open for a short while to determine if,in fact, it was separating water and is was. On through into 8 hoursand 21-l/2 minutes. I pitched down to observe the ground light that wehad operating on the African coast, I saw it and I saw the town it wasin. I was very fortunate that a large portion of the world was veryclear, so I could observe a lot of these things on the ground. I triedto take a photometer reading and discovered that our photometer wasnot very operationally suited and I gave it up as a bad job. We dolave a speed across the ground and when you're observing always on the

i ground the broken clouds, you dc have an illusion of speed and do feel like you're really traveling. It makes it rather difficult to take anyI.' accurate measurements such as this photometer measurement of the aground,s. The corona ot the towns, by the way, stood out very clearly and I think

was perhaps as distinctive as the light itself. I proceeded on with theequipment all set up, the spacecraft all ready to go, to deploy the

s drag balloon and, unfortunately, it wouldn't deploy and I went throuphthe whole process twice and it still didn't deploy so we had littlesuccess on that one. On tinrough recording temperatures, the variousdata we wanted, the radiation measurenents, and through this period of

E time, I had sevcr l occasions through this drifting flight to observe, that if the window was pointed away 'roi,. sun, so you had no oblique

L ght on the sun, and was pointed away fror th e earth so you had noearth shine on the window, then th e sky appea-ed quite dark as everyone else ha-i reported and If you could observe this fo r a number of min-utes, in this condition

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5number of minutes in this 'ondition without lght coming thru th e windowsyou could, in fact se stars on the day side if they were a brighter orderof stars and the lesser order of .,.- stars did not appear as sharp,there did appear to be some light dimming the sky over what it is on thenightsideO It went back at about ten hours and 28 caged to the gyropowered down the auto power and went into a long period of drift.

Eating and drink again at elbven houts, Radiation measurements andwe determined that thu capsule clock was running fairly good, it wasabout 7 seconds fast at this time - the time It had been initially setand orior to launch on the ground. Repeating transmissions over th e(SQ where John Glenn was, and I might mention at this pcint I did mentionit first, that I had a very nice telegraph from John stating he wishedhe could be here today and giving his best and his best to all of you andJohn did a good job out on the command ship, On thru to 12 hours and 30minutes th e capsule clock was still runn.ing about 7 seconds fast. Iclosed th e clamp on the water separator of the tin can and did some pumpion th e condensate system and began to have troubles with the system,could not get it all pumped into a bag we had for it. Later on I hadnumerous problems with this system that we were striving to make work.This is one of our plumbir.g nightmares as we called it - we had a few itemsuch as partial pump failure, partial.,, failure, and a partial connectofailure so th e system did not work very satisfactorily froin this aspectalthough we learned a lo t from it,

I had one, th e only malfunction I ever had with th e control Systemwas -. this time I had a small hang fire from one of the manual yaw

i.t was only a minor one, it yawed me off to the right, very sl ightland I ,,.,,objecz )ntrol brought it back and tried it again, it workedperfectly and never had any othev occasion to have any. Tha structuresworked perfectly except on reentry the fly-by-wires which aad been poweredown for some time were slow in getting started which was partially myown fault fcr perhaps fo r not having flipped them off and tried them offa little earlier, On thru and all thru the fl ight plan here giving theDoctors separate and timed urine samples in th e separate bags and pumpingmadly on the pumping system to transfer th4s out into various bags thatwe had, We also found that we needed large fittings on these to make ita little easier pum-ing. lt took approximately a half an orbit to pumpsample out, All this period 1 then was trying to go into the start ofour rest period and I did in fact get, we'll have to add

it up veryaccurately, but it around five to six and a helf hours sleep total.

went to sleep et ;4 hours and 20 minutes for instance and woke up atabout 1448. Now the reason I knew 1 had gone to sleep, the only reasonI knew I had gone to sleep was because I had just done somethin'g beforewhich I know I hed done and I didn't remeber anything from then on fromthe time I woke up dt, at, 48. I put a, I went thru a consumablereadout and a short status report on the tape, I remember having donethat, promptly fell asleep again, Now this was my sleep period, so Iwas authorized to sleep all I wanted. I went to sleep at 15 hours and20 minutes and woke up at 16 hours and 5 minutes. I miSht say at thispoint that sleep is very sound, very eaLy to sleep and I slept very


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Sasoundly, I tried my best to remember what dreams I had anu I know Iwas sleepinp normally and perhaps having the samx type of dreams thatI have when sleeping on earth, but I couldn't remember any of them whenI woke up, The sleep seemed to be very normal except slightly moreso"-nd. All thru the.; period I Aid no t feel like sleeping any great1' . th ct time because I was having some small difficulty with thesuit cooling circuit needing small adjustments on it , It workedsatisfactorily, I maintained a very livable temperature in the suitthroughout the flight, It did take a lot of adjustment tho, andfreq1--ntly, and I think we carn improve or. this system slightly. hyes. In the sleep when I would wake up I would discover my armsfloating out in front of met It was rather distracting,

particularlybecause a lot of switches up there, I didn't want to float thru totoo many of these switches and although I always had everythingpowered down and power completely off, still it seems like you shouldn'tsleep with your arms hang'ing out there that way, it seemed like kindof a odd position, So I finally arrived that I would fold my hands a.idstick my thumbs in around my helmet restrait straps and it felt a littlemore comfortable that way and I felt more at home with myself. So Iproceeded to use that as the sleep position from then on. I went hackto sleep at 16 hours and 50 minutes and I woke up at 17 hours and 5)minutes - I had a solid hour there, I had frozen up my suit dometemperature at this time and had to get it unclogged, which was ver;easy to do, there was not problem. Went back to sleep at 18 hours an('40 minutes and woke up at 19 hours and 27 minutes. And at 39 hours d..d

A 31 minutes I heard a news type broadcast on the high frequency radio. I'..still not sure what range he was in - I thought it sounded somewhatlike Russian but it may nct have been, But it was a language I didnot understand And over on thru - this is all a very quite periodana I might add at this point that I had made a large strong pointprior -o this flight that I didn't want a lot cf communications on tbePlight - not necessarily, and we had talmed this over with all thecontrollers and decided that we would abide by certain ground ruleson this - I might add that the range could not have done a more perFectjob - they abided by the rules, their reports to mre were complete,short, when necessary, when not necessary I heard nothir.g. And at th etime during the rest period it was completely quite throughout thewhole period, In fact, I was the one who finally broke the longsilence and reported into Muchea that I was awake, T felt very rested'9 by this time and this was about 21 hours and 25 minutes, I believe,on this pass, I told them my status was green, they confirmed whatthey were reading my status green on telemetry. I observed, at tni5particular pass, I observed that the, the, three or four of the majorcites up and down the Eastern Australian Coastline , that were under:neath cloud, I coull see them shining up thru the clouds very clearlyand could determine fairly well the size of the cities. Carlier onone of the passes over Australia I had observed Perth, and the laroooil refineries to the South oS Perth and they again had all ti~e L~htup bright and it was quite expansive. On thru to th e fifteenth or2-',the clock was abo,,t 15 seconds fast at this tias, still well inreasonable status, Thing on tnru day ard night sideu and taking datai.rhru this perid


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data through this period, aligning the spacecraft and then coming out of drifting':light, tying up the ASCS bus and aligning the spacecraft and going back on autocontrol - it worxed very satisfactorily after this long shutdown period. Scannersworked correctly and everything was functioning very normally. We had a dim lightexperiment -ue at this time at 24 hours and 15 minutes, I yawed, took the spacecraftoff auto control rd fly-by-wire placed it over right on the setting sun, caged anduncaged the gyros, rolled to a prescribed roll angle, to put the spacecraft - to lineit with the align of the ecliptic and caged and uncaged the gyros and put it on autopilot with the pitch torkueing on so that it would be pitched - as I proceeded onaround the earth-it would be pitched directly right along the plain of the ecliptic.I took a long series of pictures with she big .6 type lense on it for dim lightphenomonen, Part way through this then approximately a half to two-thirds a vaythrough this passed then I put the gyros back on and the scanners startedslowly precessing the gyros back to the orbital attitude at which time I was filmingthe dim light or glow from the lower around the earth area for this Fame general typeof photography on the same camera. Throughout several of these passes, while driftingon the day side, 1 used the Haselbiad camera with a colored film pack and snappedpictures wherever I saw a very interesting terrain or cloud or something particularlyinteresting or pretty in'color and I came up with some fairly good, pretty goodpictures from that film pack, At the end of this dim light phenomonen, I snappedoff a series of pictures With the Haselblad or the special film pack on it of thesetting moon on the day side of the moon setting over the horizon for MIT areaand tcok some, just prior to this, took horizon definitions pictures around thefull quadron of the horizon, yawing around at 900 at a time snapping some picturesand going through a little gyro procedure to keep the gyros within limits and gettingthem within the next 900 quadron all the way around. 26 hours

and 15 minutes, I ate apiece of fruit cake - a little fruit square and drank five or six gulps of water.Proceeded on through a 26 hours and 40 minutes, started some infrared weather photo-graphs, changed the back on Haselblad camera and proceeded to take, while on driftingflight, using manual proportional to correct the attitude necessary. Took someinteresting cloud arrangement pictures and coastline cloud arrangements for theweather bureau, Still could see any radiation measurements and a few other odds andends to fill in, Another eating and drinking period at 28 hours and 30 minutes andat 28 hours and 59 minutes after having pulled the light camera out tophotograph some dim light phenomona that I saw. I'd had all the cockpit lightsturned of`f as I did on most of the niglhx sides where I had anything to do with theoutside and as I brought the warning light switch back to dill, my .05g green lightwas on on my sequence panel. T thought maybe a- first I'd just ignore but I decidedthat maybe I better not, I was afraid it wouldn't go away if I didn't ignore it soI turned a few switches off to tha .,ircuit and then proceeded to sit back and tryand figure just wiat had happened in our amp cal circuit, Af'er reporting in tothe g )urd vhat had happened, we discussed it back and forth, I ran a little seriesof tests on it and determined that indeed, I had lost the auto pilot that our ampcal logic system had latched into after retrofire and, as far as it was concerned,I was ready, already ready fcr reentry. so I proceeded....1.......................40'...0 .................-.......--.... I...........................................as the reentry portion of the auto pilot which we should hcve had and we did at thispniiit. However, at 31 hours and 20 minutes, I powered up the ASCS AC Bus normal ona 250 inverter, it powered up normally. I ran temperature checks on all the invertersthey were - temperature rain very 'ow the whole flight on all our inverters and shorterafter had a small puls; or two on the airmriter and running an electrical check I foundnothing wrong at all, but then a few momens after that, the warning light came on thatthe standby AC inverter was on - it was not on - it had not switched over but in


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-6a-swinging back to the volt meter I found that the main ASCS converter was runr,:ngoverboard on volts - it was up quite high on volhage and getting higher so I turnedit off. Its temperature was still very low at this time - no temperature ris3, soI manually selected the position for the standby inverter for the ASCS and it didnot start and then I ran through two little series of sequences on it - checkingtemperatures, checking all the systems ove' and found that I did, in fact, I hadlost both 250 inverters - both the standby and the ASCS inverter. Neither one ofthem would start, both off the line. So we decided we would reenter completelywithout the auto pilot. Proceeding on through and getting all set up, the groundmade sure that I had a check list available fr all the particular situations ofeverything that was in ard out and marginal and as I say everything was functioningvery normally up to this point and still was very nominal. I had both manualcontrol systems operating perfectly and there was no concern at all at this time.I had a few other minor little problems begin to occur on the last orbit on therise on the CO2 in the suit circuit and decrease in 02 on the cabin circuit, butI did not really trus these gauges to strongly. I still felt fine and proceededto orient myself then on the last night side to get my yaw oriented and get in theproper attitude for retrofire, Came out into the first light of the 22nd orbit.John Glenn counted my down to retrofire and using the earth as the attitude referenceand my small little rate indicators for rate, I had everything all set and on thezero count watched the retros and they fired with a good strong Thump and I guessI was feeling very close on because we hit pretty close there and then was intendingto use fly-by-wire for reentry, however, I did not quite like the slowness that thefly-by-wire big thrusters lit off, as I stated previously, pernaps it was my faultfor not running it through a little bit more earlier. I was somewhat busy makingsure I was in retroattitude, so I switched over to ..................

using manualproportional to back up my fly-by-wires and


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fly-by-wire and again during reentry. I found that reentry was easierthrough the first portion than what we had been practising o' . theprocedures trainer with the computers. Everything went very well onit. I did find that the visual computers that I had, I had not had onthe procedures trainer and these were a little surprising, what yDawere actually doing compared to what you expected from your instruments.As I held reentry atti tude and started on in, th e spacecraft felt as ifit wanted to start reentering, it got a lttle mushy on the controls,started nosing on, trying to pitch or up in pitch as the heat shield -nosing on down for reentry. I applied the proper roll rate at this timeand let it go ahead and start. Very shortly thereafter I noted a lotof burning particles coming past and considerable heat on the outside -one retrostrap came flying over and sat there right in front of the window,and it proceeded to get warmer and got red hot, white hot and broke intoseveral pieces and floated away, burning. I noted the fire ball thatJohn Glenn had described, oscillating to the rear of che spacecraft, infairly close, I thought. The - Well, it really was no problem - Iwas expecting it to be out tlere; I think it's probably in the wake,back in this hypervelocity wake of the spacecraft, because you beginto pick this up on reentry. Everything went very normally. Tho oscil-lations were held very close and I felt that the reentry g's were noproblem at all. I know we had conjectured as to whether after prolongedperiod of weightlessness, whether reentry would be any real problem. Idon't feel that it is any diffreent from what we have done on thecentrifuge. I was able to keep the instruments in good clear focus,I was aware of what was going on all

the time, in fact, very shortlythereafter I was talking to Scotty Carpenter on the radio near Hawaiiand the rates picked up as they should, immediately after the maxg point, which is an area where the spacecraft becomes a little moreunstable, and I was glad that I had the dual authority because the.FW was working perfectly by this time so I had dual authority, or

'48 pounds of thrust, on . . . . by'this time. I held th e rates notas close as I would like to have held them, but I held them reasonablyclose. The oscil lat ions were not objectionable at all. Ah we camethrough, I realized we wtere in the clouds below about 50,000, theperiod had a lot of opaqueness in the window and I realized we werein the clouds, and found I had planned on deploying the drogue chutemanually at 42,000 feet, which I did, and we were in the clouds but Icould see the drogue very clearly - it came cut with a big rattle androar and a thump and then the main chute deployed itself statically atabout 11,000 feet. It was a good main and the minute it deployed, twohelicopters were orbiting around me, slightly below me and startedcalling off my altitude very shortly thereafter. They were standingby , they had swimmers, and I was very near the carrier and right whL.'ethey'd expected me. I proceeded on down to go through the checklist andget ready for impact. (t was a - really, an easier landing than I hadanticipated. I hit in a bit of a swing, it rolled over in the water,I had thought that this would be rather a grim time when it went underwater and you saw that it was lying down in the water. I found that itwas not - it surprised me. And I went through the various sequencing,of getting rid of th e main chute, jittisoning the reservet chute, lettingthe spacecraft right itself, deployed th e HF antenna, and by this time,swimmers were talking to me through the window.

Carrier came alongside,picked it up on the freight elevator and John Graham, NASA engineer


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who is onboard, asked me if he could go ahead and blow the hatch rromthe outside, I agreed, so he blew the hatch. We took two blood pressureswhile I was lying in there with the - with an extenision system that wehad to check this blood pressure out. I sat up on the hatch and DickPollard, Dr. Pollard, was there right at the moment the hatch was blowntaking these blood pressures and assisting me out. I stepped out fromthe hatch and I felt fine. I felt like I had put in a full day's work -but I was not real overly tired, I was warm from the reentry and havingbeen on the water for a short period of time but, I might add, not anywarmer than I am right now. And I felt fine as I stepped out of thespacecraft. I stood there very still for them to take one blood pressureand then start on a second one. I began to get a little dizzy. I notedthis to them and they said well, let's just disconnect it and walked onoff. They took me by the arms in case I got dizzier. Then we startedwalking. After I had taken a step or two, I felt perfectly all right.The Marine honor guard was lined up on the carrier and I was sure thecarrier waF going to tip over into the water from all the personnelthey had all down there by the third elevator, It was just a solid massof humanity hanging off every possible structure you could see and mostof them had cameras. The honor guard was lined up and the band was playingthe Air Force song which I thought was pretty good, on a carrier. AndI gave the salute, I had requested permission to come aboard while out

'- in th e water - thanks to Wally's good training -- and proceeded ondown and .e proceeded to drink a few gallons of liquid then. I was a

r' little bit dehydrated, but other than that - fine. As you can see, Ifeel fine now. And I think at this point, I'll lay it open to questions.Q: Do you feel that this flight of yours is almost a routine fligat?

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Q:,tv this flight of yours was almost a routine ride. Were you atall impressed with this mission? And at any time were you at allconcerned for your personal safety?A: Well, I had waited quite a long while for this flight and I wasvery impressed with itt I think anybody that goes up on a spaceflight and says they aren't impressed, there must be something wrongwith them, But, I was not overly concerned with my safety, I hadevery confidence that I could get it back fine. The thing was routineonly in that we had checked, checked, and double checked and all ourengineers and all the McDonnell people

had done a real great job onthis capsule and it was in good shape and all the systems workedbeautifully and it make it a rather a routine flight. It was routinein that respect that it was just like advertised,Q: Barring mechanical problems and with added consumables aboardand provided y)u had not had suit temperature control for the waterproblem how many days do you feel physically you have gone on flying?A: Oh I fe't that I got a little bit tired at intervals and I foundthat sleep, and eating and drinking rested me, I think barring thesemechanical breakdowns and with th e proper slight modifications thatwe could have gone on greatly for a prolonged period of time.Q: You were reported as having said on th e carrier to th e Doctors, theDoctors relayed it to th e press, that while you were flying over theTi bet you saw smoke from huts and when you were flying over Houstonyou thought you could have seen your house but for th e trees.a Doctor in th e Optical Society of Americani who says that the resolutionof the human eye is such that you couldn't see anything smaller than200 feet at that... so would you please straighten it out for us?A: Well, it really surprised me too, Bill, I didn't really anticipatebeing able to see such great detail but the first that I noted wasccmning over the Arabian high pennisuia area on into India short ofthe Hymalyans I noted that I saw individual road3 and rivers - that wasthe first I noted, and then I saw some little villages, individualvillages and I noted that where the houses were scattered ou t I couldactually see individual houses. I saw also, about this time, I sawsome trucks on th e roads and not to very long after that, a trainwith smoke coming out of it going down a track. I can't rememberexactly how long so I, I don't remember what area it was in, andin another area I saw a boat going down


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I don't remember what area it was in, Another area T saw a boat goingdown a river creating a white behind it. Now I don't believe you couldsee individuals or people or anything that small but I certainly couldsee the individual smoke from individual homes and smoke stacks and seeindividual homes where they were scattered apart, I did see Dallas, Texas,I did see Houston, I passed right over the edoe of Hnustrnn. I lookeddown and saw the lakes running near the NASA Manned Spacecraft Centerand I couldn't see mv own home because we left too many trees up aroundthere. Or at least, I think, on a clear day and I say, I was extremelyfortunate in that we had a lot of high pressure areas around the worldand the visibility was excellent.Q: Now a follow-up Question on this. Your sleep log indicates that youwere awake during the 9th and 10th orbit which was day time over Chinawhen you were flying over Red China, Seeing that the seeing was so goodwould you like to tell us what you saw out the window at that time?A: Well, it looks just like it looks on the map, No, I couldn't seeanything other than displa7 the country side, I saw some city areaswhich I assume were some cities not on the map that we were flying over.Part of the area did have some broken cloud conditions and in generalthe weather was very good throughout thAt whole area. Right over themiddle of the Himalayas, the clouds were riding along the edge then theybroke out and went right over the middle of the Himalayas on three dif-ferent passes and they were really beautiful, They were clear and was

,/r quite impressive.Q: Could you tell us in your opinion where the fire-.lies came from?

M Did they come from the capsule or from outside?A: I'm sorry, I led you right up to that and then forgot it didn't I?I found on nightside when you are moving you could see each thrusterfire and these fireflies were coming out in great quantities from each

* ~ thruster as you would fire and you could see them on nightside as youA would fire your thrusters. Some of them here kind of hanging on to thei- spacecraft and would come off at other times. But great streams of themwould could right ou t of th e thrusters and d'ift away. I thini. Eart pretty conclusive that this is the these are coming from our own little

G' peroxid hrusters,' Q: Can vou give us what was the status of your oxygen, water and H202?

A: I had several days of oxygen left. T used only half of my automaticfuel and only half of my manual fuel when I jett isoned.Q: Major Cooper, Whit was your KK experiment as you reported in thetranscript?A: Well, as I say, we had lovingly referred to this one experiment asthe tin can experiment and Project Mercury, Chief of our Project MercuryOffice, Ken Kleinknecht had come uv with this device. He didn't design


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hi.selrs b t we pave him the ..edit for it and we called it the KenKleinknecht cI*mpQ: As I understadld vou lost the needle in the early orbit and I'mwondering what do you expect to pet out of these calcium tests thatwe are lookinp for?A: Well the t.alcium tests do not pertain to the condensate water.This was the water that th e cabin boilers ran back through this spoland pumoeJ into this condensate tank. This wa:s v. t a. the alciUmtest we,- related to the urine,Q: I understand you lost the needle sirO

*' A: Nlo, not on the -irine system.This was on the compensate system.: ?Major Cooper. The doctors reported that there was some indications

from heartbeat and respiration that you might have actually dozed duringthe countdown Is that ripht?A: Yes, I think during the countdown at one slight period I dozed offfor a little nap, I woke up ard wis trying to orient myself. It wasrather startiinr to decide whether I was in the procedures trainer orI was up on top of the capsule on the pad. During the various test wehad done where T dozed both places.Q. Can you tell us how y)u oriented the spacecraft while you were in.rccntry? Did you have any visual references?A: Well during reentry there is no orientation as such, it pretty welltakes care of itself, The oscillations that set un. I did the onlyinstrument that I had leat on additv of the rate were :he small rate

tr indicators. !hey did indicate the ritch an d yaw rates that you establishas One spacecraft gets into as it begins reentry and I was using theseto use the pulse from the thrusters to bring about this oscillatory rate.

Q, What was the star that you were looki.e at for your reierence. Doyou know the name of it?

long nnd as yo, are poing around into nigntside, you use quite d numbe.^of stars and constellations. I have the star pattern here. This is ourstar chart, We have several of these dlong in case we have holds priorto the launch and this Is a renlew nf the spacecraft window whdt youwill see out the window -he star pattern and vot: will see uo the centerof this if you see what's on the center of tnis cnarx you center that onthe window you're on zero yaw. This little lash black line, I'm sorryit isn't Digger, but there is a little cash black line along on this thatincicates the plane of the ecliptic, so the.t we would know on this one

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cexeiment it we were in tact tracking along:. you take photographs over Red China and if so, of what?

;.. ; idn't take any pictures of specific objects, I did where I sawa pretty cloud formations or the Himalayas, I took several pictures)f, I thought they were very impressive, I took pictures all over allareas of the world where there were objects I thought were photographicallyworthwhile,Q: Major Ccoper, When you awoke, 4id you have any signs of disorien-tation?A: No, I did note that on awakening from

sleep each time tnat I feltvery refreshed, i felt like I had really bean sleening soundly, but bythis time I had become rather acclimated so as I awoke as I aware of whereI was.Q: How do you explain then that test pilots, within 60 seconds, on para-bolic weightless missions were awakened by a piece of string at HollomanAir Force Base. They had complete disorientation.A: Well, I'm not sure how they could get very sound sleep on entry into. 60-second pattern because they 60-second pattern that I havc done youdo quite alot of hard pullout in order to pull up, I should say, inorder to enter this parabolic pattern. I do feel that on zero g simula-tion you have considerably more tendency to be disoriented entirely be-cause you pull gts going into the maneuver and you pull g's coming out,

Q: Major Cooper, how did you go from retro atti tude to the reentry at-t i tude. As I understand it the window does not give you any help at ailthere.A. T', is correct, I held it on slightly low on the ideal reentry at-tit;!.? ntil i felt that it was wantinF to start to reenter in order to

nvm yaw down and to be able to get the subjective close as possible.Bit : tlat time I allowed to ease on- up where I lost sight with th eearth and into the proper attitude for reentry and started my roll rate.

Q: Major Cooper, On your retrofire, Mr. Williams said you used the hori-j~ . zon for your attitude control. Is there any possibility

or could there bean obscuring of the horizon and what would you do in that case?A: Well, ' nad quite a tew days and nights and in no time did I evernotice the horizon obscured or anything.Q: Is it a possibi 'ty of the horizon being obscured?A: No, I would say not. The horizon is always clear, day and night.


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Recording the flashinp Macon experiment, for how many orbits do youthink you could follow the satellite, at what ranRe do you thinK you sawthe light, and what crnclusions have you drawn about the easibility ofusing this technique fo r use in space?A; Well, most of my previous estimates and my personal feeling on itright now, John, until we get more full data on it. I feel it would bejust personal now. I feel it would be a good device to help out on thenight side for rendezvous. Based on what I saw at the Planetarium, alrwe have conducted some tests on aircraft on it, when I saw this lightthe last time at approximately 17 to 18 miles. Now this is a retati *lysmall, low order light and we could, in fact

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we could, in fact, step up the output of it quite a oit, by slowing downthe flash rate of it . . . . I think, by improving it slightly it can

becomea very effective device.Q:: How did you work wiht the exercise device? How did that work out?

COOPER: Well, it turned out be about as much exercise to get to it asit was to use it. We took blood pressure, I punched the blood pressureswitch until the blood pressure had been taken and then pushed the

stopbutton to stop itand then traveled around until ; got the exercise deviceand exercised for about 20 or 30 seconds with it and then lay back andrested while I pushed the blood pressure switch again.

Q: Major, there has been talk lately of a 6-day mission. In view ofwhat you've just said, would it be possible to go on all that time in aMercury spacecraft.

COOPER: We-, I think that would depend on a lot of things - on what wefind out on the data on this. My personal opinion is that we certainlycan elongate this mission. We have - I think that the data we haveobtained on the longer mission is pretty significant. I feel thatyou could go through the same launch and the same reentry at the samecost and I feel that the amount of data that you can get by extendingthe mission is very, very significant.

n theini rogamwouldn'tQ: If this Mercury team would be at work on the Gemini program,you slow down the Gemini program -- wouldn't an MA-10 slow down the

SEAMANS: May I express myself on this and then maybe Bob would like tomake a few comments. We are faced with the decision in the next week

ortoso as to whether we have an MA-10 launching or not - as you know, the

MA-10 was established as a backup for the MA-9 in case we didn't achieve% all the results that we intended to achieve. It certainly appears

that:. the MA-9 has been most successful, however, we must review the results i

carefully and thoughtfully with the key people in the manned flightprogram before making a final decision. However, it is true that wehave a lot of important jobs to be done beyond Mercury and these takea very great effort. We can

well use the manpower that we have onMercury on the Gemini, both within NASA and McDonnell Aircraft. And I~'consider it quite unlikely that we will have an additional Mercury flight.GILRUTH: I'd like to add something there. You always have a trade-offin these programs. Certainly there is a substantial effort that goesinto these flights. Up to now there is a substantial return from them.So you're always involved in making a trade-off, which will give thetotal program the greatest advance per square month, or something like that

'And this is a decision that you can only make if you have all the data inand assess the whole situation.

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Q Major Cooper, a lot of people in Colorado and Oklahomawould like

to see you. When do you plan to go into that territory?COOPER: Well, I don't plan on making any formal entrance

in either oneof those places. I think I'll slip out to either one

of them when I go.

Q: Tell us, please, the difficulty you had with waterthat leaked, evi-

' dently, out of this condensate system and what measuresyou took to

n correct it and what you think - could this have had somethingto do

with the electrical trouble that developed after 29 hours?

COOPER: I don't really believe thatit did. The water was pretty well

confined to the area where it was spilled, It does tend to spreadaround

the cockpit, but I fortunately had a handkerchief along withme and

where the water would cling onto me or the window, I wipedit up right

away.Q: Was this from the condensate transfer or was it from

the drinkingwater or from both? What was the trouble you had?

COOPER: Well, we had a leaky valve - a leaky threader valveon the

drinking water tank and in trying to get some waterinto the eating

containers, I had one that I struggled and struggled andstruggled to

get water into it to eat it and that's all I managedto get enough water

into to eat. The food is very good - it's very satisfactoryI think the

basic idea of this thing is good, but I think we needsome very slight

modifications of the bag so we'll have a workable system under zerog's.Q: Gordo, what wuld that bag have been if you could

have made food outof it?COOPER: That bag is beef pot roast.Q: Did you have trouble fighting sleepiness at a time

when you wanted tobe awake?COOPER: No, I don't think so. i didn't miss anything

on the flight plantat all. I didn't find it a very big effort to stay awake

for this. Ifound that you just when you find a short slack period

there you can justrelax and enjoy it.Q: Do you think that people on a trip to the moon will

find it ratherpleasant to just sleep most of the way there?

COOPER: Well, this depends on - I don't think they'll havethe capability

of sleeping all the way there. They have certainfunctions to do. I

think that if you don't have anything to do, youcertainly will be able to

sleep without any problem.

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Q: I wonder if you could tell us -- what was your outstandingimpression

of this experience?COOPER: it's great.Q; You said that the longer flight gave significant data. Could youreview some of these more significant points tht we know of now thatbefore your flight we did not know.COOPER- Well, I think I've hit most of them here, in things that I'vegone over0 A lot of them are on the onboard tape, I have various systemsperformances - a lot of them are still on the undeveloped film for thevarious other agencies that wetll go into later - later slides andlater experiments.Q: Well, I see Paul Haney up there - he's trying to close this up -but there are two things I would like to get. Onc, did you have anyradiation readings to give? If so, what are those? Well, that'salright you take that one.COOPER: No, I don't. All this data is sent on back in - I don't get thereadings my self - it's put on the tape, and on to little readers.Q: And the other is - you had a plan that you announced in February inSan Antonio to decompress toward the end of this flight and recompressbefore reentry. That was scratched out of the flight schedule. Whatever happened to that?COOPER: Well, it was decided that it was just not feasible to do it atthis point0 There were only so many things that we could do on theflight and --Q: Was this from a time point or from a more technical point of view?

COOPER: Well, I think more from the time than the technical - it wouldhave - .e done at an ideal time in order for the ran-, to able tomonitv! your decompression and your recompression. And we would havehad a little trouble fitting it in along with the othcr things.Q: What do you think this flight proved as far as the need for havingman in space, rather than just automatic equipment - whether on ascientific exploration of this kind or on a military mission where youmight have an important reconnaissance?COOPER: I think we proved that man is a pretty good backup system toall these automatic systems and I think the mission was conducted justlike it was planned to be done, in spite of various minor equipmentbreaking down0Q:: Did you feel that the supply was adequate or did you feel at any time )the pangs of hunger?COOPER: I really had to force myself to eat - I never did feel too overly Xhungry0 I think that the food supply I had along was adequate, althoughit was so much work to get to some of it here, that I tended to just


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perhaps not eat as much as I should have. These are the little foodcubes that we had along. I ate one whole box of these, plus severalother items. These are quite good but they are more of a dessert typeand you fairly rapidly get tired of just dessert.Q: We have heard of the ball peen hammer to smash the instruments withwhen you got false warning lights. When the 05g light came on, whatwere you about to do with that?COOPER: I came very close to using the hammer on it.SEAMANS: I just want to say in closing. I pointed out at the start thatwe still have a long way to go in this country, advancing technology andlearning more about the universe, but I very much doubt that we'regoing to find an astronaut who can improve on the performance of GordonCooper.

END

MA-9 Press Conference

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Transcript of MA-9 Press Conference