Bill Nelson: In the midst of the Cold War, here the Soviet
Union and the United States poised to annihilate each other
with nuclear weapons. And it was an extraordinary time.
Scott Carpenter: Of course, we were all given orders, which were
supposed to be secret, to come to Washington and to not discuss the
reason for those orders with anyone, even our wives.
John Glenn: NASA finally got interested in sending somebody into
space. It was such a new thing. It was all very, very secret at that time.
We went through a long selection process and--which included physical
and psychological and all--every measurement they knew how to
make on the human body, I guess. So, when we finally came down
on--we were finally selected, we were very happy to be there and
felt honored to be among the seven to be selected.
Scott Carpenter: When I realized that I'd been chosen to be part
of the first team, that was the end-all, be-all for me.
Bill Nelson: The original seven were, of course, figures that
were revered, the engineers who were doing the designs, the launch
crews who were doing the day in and day out work, and then the crew
shimmying in, into those little tin cans called capsules
that were taking us into the heavens.
John Glenn: The mission was planned to come back and land on the water.
And so, we did a lot of water training on it, too. So, what would happen
if you had a leak in the spacecraft after you once hit the
water, what the impact would be. If you're underwater,
could you get out, and training like that that tried to train
for every possible contingency.
Steve Lindsey: When I got to fly the shuttle, I knew what to expect.
I think when John flew his first flight, he didn't know what to expect.
And that's a huge difference.
When John first launched, he was on a brand new rocket,
never been to orbit before. We didn't know how humans
would react in zero G. We didn't know whether they'd be able to eat.
Some people said their eyes wouldn't focus, all kinds of crazy
stories that John told me that they told him, before he launched,
to expect. He didn't believe any of those and most of them
were not true. But, we just didn't know back then.
John Glenn: The day that I finally went, that was my--that was the
third time I had actually suited up and been
on top, been locked in and ready to go.
But, when you finally get in the thing and you're ready to go,
you're very, very busy. People think you're in there
contemplating great thoughts. And I think it's more like
that you're in there, as I was, double checking all the
instrumentation and talking to the people on the ground crew
to make sure that everything was okay for launch.
Scott Carpenter: That countdown for the launch is something
you have done time and time and time again. So, it was, in a
sense, just another day at the office. But, this
was real and it caught everybody's attention. .
Mission Control: Godspeed, John Glenn
Mission Control: Six, five, four, three, two, one, zero.
John Glenn: Roger. The clock is operating. We're underway.
Mission Control: Hear you loud and clear.
John Glenn: Roger. We're programming at roll okay.
Scott Carpenter: Godspeed, John Glenn. I was in the blockhouse
when he was and the last to speak to him before liftoff.
Gus and Al had both done that, but they weren't riding on this big,
big fuel tank that had enough--had the ability to give him more
speed than what Al and Gus had had. They didn't have enough to
coast all the way around the world. They just had enough to go up a
little ways and fall back to Earth.
John Glenn: People look at all this fire and smoke on the ground and
they think you're under huge stress inside. You're not. The thrust is
just barely greater than the weight of the spacecraft, so you lift
off very gently. And the more the fuel burns out there, the lighter
it becomes, and the thrust is still high. So, the farther you go up
here on this entry into space, the more G's you feel inside.
Roger. Zero G and I feel fine. Capsule is turning around.
Oh, that view is tremendous.
Mission Control: Roger. Turnaround has started.
John Glenn: Roger. Capsule turning around. And I could see the
booster during turnaround just a couple of hundred yards behind me.
It was beautiful.
Mission Control: Roger, Seven. You have a go, at least seven orbits.
John Glenn: Roger. Understand go for at least seven orbits.
Bill Nelson: Everything worked perfectly, and then there was an
indication that John's heat shield was loose, which meant that after
the third orbit and on the de-orbit that he would burn up, if it was.
John Glenn: Well, I certainly wanted to make it a two-way trip and come back, of course.
Bill Barry: It's the first thing I actually remember in my
whole life, is sitting in front of our nice black and white TV
on the floor, because I had to get real close because, you know,
I was really excited about this, watching the John Glenn flight.
And the thing I remember most about it is sitting there worrying
about whether or not John Glenn was going to survive when that
heat shield was, you know, getting loose.
John Glenn: During reentry, then, instead of jettisoning that retro
pack here and getting it off so I had a clean heat shield for reentry,
we left that on so that the heat shield would be held in place until
the aerodynamic force of reentry would tend to hold the heat shield in place.
Now, that made for an interesting--well, the reentry was going to
be interesting anyway, but it was even more interesting because,
as I would glance occasionally out the little window, I could see
chunks of that retro pack breaking up and coming back by the window.
My condition is good, but that was a real fireball, boy. I had great
chunks of that retro pack breaking off all the way through.
Rocking quite a bit. I may still have some of that pack on.
I can't damp it, either.
And I couldn't be absolutely certain then whether it was
the heat shield breaking up or the retro pack.
And obviously it was the retro pack or I wouldn't
be here today. But, anyway, it was a--that kind of
reentry was the second problem we had in addition to
the control system failure.
Bill Barry: If you listen to the tapes, it's pretty clear
that he knows that there's something going on there and it's not
the normal procedure, because he knew the procedures really well.
He knew that retro pack should have been gone.
Bill Nelson: Coming out of the blackout period and saying,
"Houston, this is Friendship Seven," and of course the nation
went nuts. The world went nuts.
John Glenn: Main chute is on green. Chute is out in reef
condition at 10,800 feet and beautiful chute. Chute looks good.
On 02 emergency and the chute looks very good.
Steve Lindsey: His odds of not surviving this was about one
in six. So, it was an extremely high risk, unknown effort that
they were going into, having never done it before.
Scott Carpenter: When it came time for aligning the capsule in the
proper attitude for retrofire, there was underthrust of the rockets themselves.
And the result of the intermittently failed horizon scanner
meant that the rockets were pointed in the wrong direction.
Each one of those failures made me fly a little bit too far,
and it all added up to 250 miles. Had a lot of people frightened.
I was not frightened by that because, contrary to their lack of knowledge
about my location, I knew exactly where I was.
I was back on the water where I wanted to be.
John Glenn: We did research. We learned the new things first.
And those were--and with a little investment and an educated citizenry,
away we went with a--we became a leader in
the world in just about a century and a quarter.
Scott Carpenter: It was a total, resounding success.
And it was a great, great honor and pleasure to be a part of
such a marvelous and successful program.