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Episodes Tagged with "Gus Grissom"

Posted on December 28, 2016

On April 1, 1959, Robert Gilruth, the head of the Space Task Group, Charles Donlan, Warren North, and Stanley White selected the first American astronauts. The “Mercury Seven” were Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., John H. Glenn, Jr., Virgil I....

Posted on July 30, 2015

Selection of Group Two virtually depleted the pool of qualified candidates from the small corps of test pilots in the country, and it was the last group for which test-pilot certification would be a requirement. The new trainees reported to Houston i...

2-NASA_Group_1_and_2_Astronauts_Photo_With_Autopens

2-Back row- See, McDivitt, Lovell, White, & Stafford. Front row- Conrad, Borman, Armstrong, & Young

1- Project_Mercury_AstronautsBack row- Shepard, Grissom, Cooper; front row- Schirra, Slayton, Glenn, Carpenter.

Posted on August 5, 2015

With Group 4, for the first time, the selection criteria did not include a requirement for test pilot proficiency. Selectees who were not qualified pilots would be assigned to the Air Force for a year of flight training. The primary scientific requir...

Group4Astronaut

4-Group 4 L-R- Garriott, Gibson. Front row, L-R- Michel, Schmitt, Kerwin.

3-Astronaut_Group_Three_-_GPN-2000-001476

Posted on August 13, 2015

“Some of those guys came in figuring, “I’ll write my textbooks and my thesis and teach [university courses] and I’ll come by twice a week and be an astronaut.” Well, that didn’t work …. We were devoting our lives to this whole thing, and you couldn’t...

5-Back row, from L-R- Swigert, Pogue, Evans, Weitz, Irwin, Carr, Roosa, Worden, Mattingly, Lousma. Front row, from L-R- Givens, Mitchell, Duke, Lind, Haise, Engle, Brand, Bull, McCandless

Posted on August 27, 2015

Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr. was Born on February 28, 1924 in a town that no longer exist, Phoebus, Virginia. The town has now been engulfed by Hampton, Virginia. Kraft was named after his father, Christopher Columbus Kraft, who was born in New Yor...

3-Christopher_Kraft,_flight_director_during_Project_Mercury,_works_at_his_console_inside_the_Flight_Control_area_at_Mercury_Mission_Control

2-Wally Schirra (right) consults the flight plan for his Mercury-Atlas-8 (MA-8) mission with Flight Director Chris Kraft

1-Chris Kraft and Rober Gilruth

Posted on September 3, 2015

At the beginning of the Apollo program, Kraft retired as a flight director to concentrate on management and mission planning. In 1972, he became director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, following the path of his mentor Robert Gilruth.

3-Robert F. Thompson (center) and Christopher C. Kraft Jr. (right) brief Rear Admiral W.C. Abhau

2-Kraft with his new flight directors before the Gemini 4 mission Clockwise from lower right Kraft, Gene Kranz, Glynn Lunney and John Hodge

1-Kraft Kranz Gemini Fuel Cell problem

Posted on September 10, 2015

As Procedures Officer, Kranz was put in charge of integrating Mercury Control with the Launch Control Team at Cape Canaveral, Florida, writing the “Go/NoGo” procedures that allowed missions to continue as planned or be aborted, along with serving as ...

3-Kranz and his teacher Kraft

2-Kranz at his console on May 30, 1965, in the Mission Operations Control Room, Mission Control Center, Houston

1-Kranz-F86 Sabre Cat

Posted on September 17, 2015

While flight-preparation crews were having problems, Grissom, White, and Chaffee were finding bottlenecks in training activities. The chief problem was keeping the Apollo mission simulator current with changes being made in spacecraft 012.

3-Astronauts Grissom, Chaffee, and White check the communications headgear in preparation for what was to have been the first manned Apollo flight – Apollo-Saturn 204, scheduled for 21 February 1967

2-CM-012 – Apollo One- arrives at Kennedy Space Center, 26 August 1966

1-Command module 012 and service module 012 in workstands at the North American Aviation plant, Downey, in 1965

Posted on October 1, 2015

“So the reason I took those symbols was that I think this was the most important thing I had going for me, and I felt that while I couldn’t take one for every religion in the country, I could take the three I was most familiar with.”  Ed. White

Chaffee, White, and Grissom

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Posted on October 8, 2015

“On my honor I will do my best, To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times;  To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.” The Boy Scout Oath.

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1-Chaffee at the consoles in Mission Control during the Gemini 3 mission

Posted on October 15, 2015

The “Plugs Out” test scheduled for Jan 27, 1967 was not the first time that spacecraft 12 had been put through a simulated run with people on board…

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3-PrimeandBackupCrews

2-PrimeCrewAltitudeChamberTest

Posted on October 22, 2015

When Deke Slayton and Stu Roosa arrived at pad 34 they saw ambulances waiting in vain at the base of the launch tower.  They boarded the small elevator and rode to level A-8, 218 feet up, and headed across the swing arm to the clean room…

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Posted on October 29, 2015

The tragedy of Apollo 1 was widely reported in the Soviet Union. The Soviets sent condolences and letters to the families of the men who had died. But, the Soviet Press criticized the US for an overzealous attempt to send men to the moon.

CM parts were studied and catalogued in the Pyrotechnics Installation Building at Kennedy Space Center.

The CM wiring harness goes through x-ray inspection.

apollo-1-disassembly

Posted on November 5, 2015

What went wrong?  Even years after the investigators began to sift through the wreckage of Apollo 1 piece by piece, no one could say exactly.  But within weeks the general picture became clear:  The fire was a disaster waiting to happen.

Deputy Administrator Seamans, Administrator Webb, Manned Space Flight Administrator George E. Mueller, and Apollo Program Director Phillips testify before a Senate hearing on the Apollo accident

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1-Apollo1 Inve

Posted on November 12, 2015

Posted on March 23, 2016

Had it not been for the fact that Eisele damaged his shoulder during a zero-G training flight aboard a KC-135 aircraft just before Christmas 1965, he might have been in the senior pilot’s seat aboard Apollo 1, instead of Ed White.

3-Cunningham during the Apollo 7 mission

2-Donn_F._Eisele prior to launch of ap17

1- Schirra as the Commander of Apollo 7 crew

Posted on May 26, 2016

Frank Frederick Borman, II was born on March 14, 1928, in Gary, Indiana. He is of German descent, born as the first and only child to parents Edwin and Marjorie Borman. Because he suffered from numerous sinus problems in the cold and damp weather, hi...

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1-Frank_Borman

Posted on June 20, 2013

On April 1, 1959, Robert Gilruth, the head of the Space Task Group, Charles Donlan, Warren North, and Stanley White selected the first American astronauts. The “Mercury Seven” were Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., John H. Glenn, Jr., Virgil I....

m7-capsule

Mercury 7

Posted on December 14, 2016

With the passing of John Glenn last week, I thought it would be appropriate to pause my coverage of Apollo 10 for a week and create an episode that celebrates the life of the American Icon, John Glenn.  I covered John Glenn’s Mercury flight in episod...

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Posted on August 29, 2013

Mercury-Redstone 4 was the fourth mission in the Mercury-Redstone series and the second U.S. manned suborbital spaceflight. The mission was essentially a repeat of Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 flight.   So why was it necessary to launch another sub-orbit...

Liberty_Bell_7_The_Kansas_Cosmosphere_and_Space_Center

513px-Grissom_lifted_from_water_61-MR4-82

Mercury_4_Hatch

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GusSuitup

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Posted on September 5, 2013

After Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom’s suborbital flights and less than four months after Gagarin’s became the first man in space, the soviet union stunned the world with yet another manned mission.

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PreLaunch

Posted on September 12, 2013

Following the successful suborbital missions of Allan Shepard and Gus Grissom, NASA believed the Mercury capsule was ready for an orbital mission.  But, there was a problem, the Redstone booster did not have the power to place the Mercury capsule int...

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t189

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Atlas_D_with_Mercury-Atlas_5_(Nov._29_1961)

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Posted on September 19, 2013

“I am in a big mass of some very small particles, they’re brilliantly lit up like they’re luminescent. I never saw anything like it! They round a little: they’re coming by the capsule and they look like little stars. A whole shower of them coming by....

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Glenn62

800px-Glenn_Enters_his_Mercury_Capsule_-_GPN-2000-001029

415px-Mercury_6,_John_H_Glenn_Jr

Posted on June 5, 2019

After the Mercury-Atlas 10 mission was canceled, Shepard was designated as the Commander of the first crewed Gemini mission, with Thomas P. Stafford chosen as his pilot. Shepard at his Mission Control ConsoleShepard & GrissomShepard as Chief of the ...

P3-Alan-shepard chief astronaut office

P2-Alan Shepard Gus Grissom

P1-Shepard during Gemini 6A mission at his consoles in the Mission Control Center

Posted on October 10, 2013

After the successful completion of the Mercury-Atlas 6 flight that carried John Glenn into orbit, it was Scott Carpenter’s turn to pilot Mercury-Atlas 7, which he named Aurora 7.  The mission was essentially a repeat of John Glenn’s 3 orbit mission, ...

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Carpenter-Aboard-Raft-0512a

aurora7nasa

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Posted on November 7, 2013

Mercury-Atlas 9 was the fourth and final manned orbital flight of the Mercury program. The flight objectives were to: (1) evaluate the effects on the astronaut of approximately one day in orbital flight; (2) verify that man can function for an exte...

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Posted on March 13, 2014

Gemini Launch Vehicle Two’s misfortunes during August and September 1964 forced NASA to forego its goal of a manned Gemini 3 flight before the end of the year, Gemini-Titan 2 was now scheduled for mid-November 1964, and Gemini 3 for the end of Januar...

800px-Gemini2xrear

Gemini B spacecraft on display at the Air Force Space & Missile Museum, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida

View of the earth and space from the unmanned Gemini 2 cabin window during reentry

Posted on April 3, 2014

The precise scope of the Gemini 3 mission remained uncertain until very nearly the eve of flight. In April of 1963, the GT-3 mission directive was “to demonstrate and evaluate the capabilities of the spacecraft and launch vehicle system, and the proc...

gemin3 panel

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Astronaut Roger B. Chaffee is shown at console in the Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas during the Gemini-Titan 3 flight.

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Posted on April 10, 2014

Grissom – What is it? Young: Corned beef sandwich. Grissom: Where did it come from? Young: I brought it with me. Let’s see how it tastes. Smells, doesn’t it. Grissom: Yes, its breaking up. I’m going to stick it in my pocket. Young: Is it? It was...

Gemini3 Carrier

Gemini 3 View

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Unsinkable

Launching of the first manned Gemini flight.

Posted on April 24, 2014

Posted on May 1, 2014

For the first time Television coverage of the launch had an international audience, as the scene was broadcast to 12 European nations via Intelsat 1 aka the Early Bird satellite of episode 59. Heightened by the prospect of an EVA and the first use of...

Spacewalk

Manned Maneuvering Unit

Gt4Patch

gemini-4

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Gemini 4 recovery

Gemini 4 launch

Gemini 4 inside national air and space

Gemini -24 scale model

Ed white

G4 button

Posted on May 29, 2014