Read Online Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program by Glynn S. Lunney - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Glynn S. Lunney
Tags: General Non-Fiction
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high-risk condition. For unknown reasons, the Redstone had apparently begun to ignite its engines and then shut down. Although I didn’t figure all this out at the time, the spacecraft reacted as it should have following a normal shutdown of the rocket at the end of its planned firing. This resulted in the jettisoning of the escape tower and, since the barostats sensed an altitude below ten thousand feet (the normal altitude for chute deployment), out went the parachutes.
MR-1 Escape Tower Fires
So we ended up with a rocket that had been pressurized, armed, fired and released for flight and it was still sitting on the pad unconstrained by any hold-down device. On top of that precarious condition, the concern was that the parachutes would fill in the breeze and perhaps pull the vehicle over and cause it to collapse on the pad. The Redstone team in the blockhouse was scrambling to decide on a course of action to stabilize and “safe” this condition. I did not hear those conversations but I do know of one option that was being discussed with the range safety officer. Since all the ground umbilicals to the vehicle had been released for flight, there was really no way for the blockhouse to exercise any control. The option being discussed involved shooting a high-powered rifle at the Redstone tank and letting the fuel spill out.
I was completely new to this environment and knew nothing of “safing” techniques. But this did not sound like safety. My gut reaction to this rifle scheme was really negative. It was soon set aside.
The team in the blockhouse considered an option involving reconnecting the umbilicals. This approach involved sending some people, maybe only one, out to reconnect the umbilicals with a completely fueled vehicle precariously balanced on the pad. This was dropped soon also. Eventually, since the wind was very light and forecast to remain so, the concern about filling the parachutes and causing a tip-over seemed less threatening. Finally, it was decided to simply wait, let the launch vehicle batteries drain down and this would cause some of the valves to go to the safe position. There was risk with this path, but it was the one selected and resulted in the complete “safing” of the vehicle by the next day.
Up until this event, I had a rather constrained view of what my job as a flight dynamics officer might entail. This experience drove home the fact that unplanned failures or events could really happen, and that the automatic system, or the crew, or some intervention by the ground crew could start another chain of events. All of a sudden, the preparation for effectively operating in the MCC took on several more dimensions than I had been imagining. This was much more of a lesson than I had expected on my very first day of limited operations involvement. From that day on, my thinking and that of my colleagues embraced the idea that the unexpected could happen and things could get even more complicated from there.
Back to Inventing the Discipline at STG
Besides these lessons from the RSO world, another important job on the ground was to make sure that the spacecraft was in a suitable and safe orbit. We spent considerable time deciding what conditions had to be met in order to consider the orbit safe and give it a “GO.” The geometry of the launch phase was such that the point at which the launch vehicle was commanded to be shut down and the spacecraft was in orbit occurred halfway between the Cape and the station at Bermuda. These and other trajectory-related conditions were the responsibility of the console operator known as Flight Dynamics Officer, call sign “FIDO.”
Mercury Control Center at Cape Canaveral
By this time, the planning for control of the spacecraft in orbit had evolved to the concept of a Mercury Control Center (MCC) at the Cape and connected to multiple ground and ship-based stations around the world. The MCC – an acronym that worked
MR-1 Escape Tower Fires
So we ended up with a rocket that had been pressurized, armed, fired and released for flight and it was still sitting on the pad unconstrained by any hold-down device. On top of that precarious condition, the concern was that the parachutes would fill in the breeze and perhaps pull the vehicle over and cause it to collapse on the pad. The Redstone team in the blockhouse was scrambling to decide on a course of action to stabilize and “safe” this condition. I did not hear those conversations but I do know of one option that was being discussed with the range safety officer. Since all the ground umbilicals to the vehicle had been released for flight, there was really no way for the blockhouse to exercise any control. The option being discussed involved shooting a high-powered rifle at the Redstone tank and letting the fuel spill out.
I was completely new to this environment and knew nothing of “safing” techniques. But this did not sound like safety. My gut reaction to this rifle scheme was really negative. It was soon set aside.
The team in the blockhouse considered an option involving reconnecting the umbilicals. This approach involved sending some people, maybe only one, out to reconnect the umbilicals with a completely fueled vehicle precariously balanced on the pad. This was dropped soon also. Eventually, since the wind was very light and forecast to remain so, the concern about filling the parachutes and causing a tip-over seemed less threatening. Finally, it was decided to simply wait, let the launch vehicle batteries drain down and this would cause some of the valves to go to the safe position. There was risk with this path, but it was the one selected and resulted in the complete “safing” of the vehicle by the next day.
Up until this event, I had a rather constrained view of what my job as a flight dynamics officer might entail. This experience drove home the fact that unplanned failures or events could really happen, and that the automatic system, or the crew, or some intervention by the ground crew could start another chain of events. All of a sudden, the preparation for effectively operating in the MCC took on several more dimensions than I had been imagining. This was much more of a lesson than I had expected on my very first day of limited operations involvement. From that day on, my thinking and that of my colleagues embraced the idea that the unexpected could happen and things could get even more complicated from there.
Back to Inventing the Discipline at STG
Besides these lessons from the RSO world, another important job on the ground was to make sure that the spacecraft was in a suitable and safe orbit. We spent considerable time deciding what conditions had to be met in order to consider the orbit safe and give it a “GO.” The geometry of the launch phase was such that the point at which the launch vehicle was commanded to be shut down and the spacecraft was in orbit occurred halfway between the Cape and the station at Bermuda. These and other trajectory-related conditions were the responsibility of the console operator known as Flight Dynamics Officer, call sign “FIDO.”
Mercury Control Center at Cape Canaveral
By this time, the planning for control of the spacecraft in orbit had evolved to the concept of a Mercury Control Center (MCC) at the Cape and connected to multiple ground and ship-based stations around the world. The MCC – an acronym that worked
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