The Right Stuff

"Roger."

But why? The retropack wrapped around the edges of the heat shield and held the retro-rockets. Once the rockets were fired, the retropack was supposed to be jettisoned. They were back to the heat shield again, with no explanation. But he had to concentrate on firing the retro-rockets.

Next to the launch this was the most dangerous part of the flight. If the capsule's angle of attack was too shallow, you might skip off the top of the earth's atmosphere and stay in orbit for days, until long after your oxygen had run out. You wouldn't have any more rockets to slow you down. If the angle were too steep, the heat from the friction of going through the atmosphere would be so intense you would burn up inside the capsule, and a couple of minutes later the whole thing would disintegrate, heat shield or no heat shield. But the main thing was not to think about it in quite those terms. The field of consciousness is very small, said Saint-Exupery. What do I do next? It was the moment of the test pilot at last. Oh, yes! I've been here before! And I am immune! I don't get into corners I can't get out of! One thing at a time! He could be a true flight test hero and try to line the capsule up all by himself by using the manual controls with the horizon as his reference—or he could make one more attempt to use the automatic controls. Please, dear God… don't let me foul up! What would the Lord answer? (Try the automatic, you ni

Schirra began giving him the countdown for firing the rockets. "Five, four—"

He nudged it back once more with the yaw thruster. "—three, two, one, fire."

He pushed the retro-rocket switch with his hand. The rockets started firing in sequence, the first one, the second one, the third one. The sound seemed terribly muffled—but in that very moment, the jolt! Pure gold! One instant, as Schirra counted down, he felt absolutely motionless. The next… thud thud thud… the jolt in his back. He felt as if the capsule had been knocked backward. He felt as if he were sailing back toward Hawaii. All as it should be! Pure gold! The retro-light was lit up green. It was all going perfectly. He was merely slowing down. In eleven minutes he would be entering the earth's atmosphere.

He could hear Schirra saying: "Keep your retropack on until you pass Texas."

Still no reason given! He couldn't see the pattern yet. There was only the dim sense that in some fashion they were jerking him around. But all he said was: "That's affirmative."

"It looked like your attitude held pretty well," said Schirra. "Did you have to back it up at all?"

"Oh, yes, quite a bit. Yeah, I had a lot of trouble with it."

"Good enough for government work from down here," said Schirra. That was one of Schirra's favorite lines.

"Do you have a time for going to Jettison Retro?" said Gle

"Texas will give you that message," said Schirra. "Over."

They weren't going to tell him! Not so much the thought… as the feeling… of the insult began to build up.

Three minutes later the Texas capcom tracking station came in: "This is Texas capcom, Friendship 7. We are recommending that you leave the retropackage on through the entire re-entry. This means that you will have to override the zero-point-oh-five-g switch, which is expected to occur at 04:43:53. This also means that you will have to manually retract the scope. Do you read?"

That did it.

"This is Friendship 7," said Gle

"Not at this time," said the Texas capcom. "This is the judgment of Cape Flight… Cape Flight will give you the reason for this action when you are in view."

"Roger. Roger. Friendship 7."

It was really unbelievable. It was begi

Twenty-seven seconds later he was over the Cape itself and the Cape capcom, with the voice of Alan Shepard on the radio, was telling him to retract his periscope manually and to get ready for re-entry into the atmosphere.

It was begi

He could hear Shepard's voice.

He was winding in the periscope, and he could hear Shepard's voice: "While you're doing that… we are not sure whether or not your landing bag has deployed. We feel it is possible to re-enter with the retropackage on. We see no difficulty at this time in that type of re-entry."

Gle

Oh, yes, he understood now! If the landing bag was deployed, that meant the heat shield was loose. If the heat shield was loose, then it might come off during the re-entry, unless the retropack straps held it in place long enough for the capsule to establish its angle of re-entry. And the straps would soon burn off. If the heat shield came off, then he would fry. If they didn't want him—the pilot!—to know all this, then it meant they were afraid he might panic. And if he didn't even need to know the whole pattern—just the pieces, so he could follow orders—then he wasn't really a pilot! The whole sequence of logic clicked through Gle

"Seven, this is Cape," said Al Shepard. "Over."

"Go ahead, Cape," said Gle

"We recommend that you…"

That was the last he could hear from the ground. He had entered the atmosphere. He couldn't feel the g-forces yet, but the friction and the ionization had built up, and the radios were now useless. The capsule was begi