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About Herald and news. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1942-current | View Entire Issue (May 15, 1963)
ace In Mercury - Atlas Capsule Death Beckons Man In Tiny Space Ship Rocket, Capsule and Man . . . Iordon Cooper Soars into Sp it-'-" X - v i . . - - i at '7 f -i ' . . r 1 . 77 s ""C-r? -: " " , -'.v VteL 4Sfe;Mfetl mt M ft. :,VJ SI ket destined to lift astronaut Leroy Gordon Cooper F- I Osi ATT. AS ARRIVES Th 130n Atlas rocket into space arrives by air at Cape Canaveral, tla. Tne launcn venicie nas one ana one- that takes over after the boosters drop off and two small vernier engines for directional CAPSULE CAPPING Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper's Mer- FLIGHT FEDORA America's sixth Mercury astronaut L. adiustments Atlas has 300,000 parts (50,000 of them moving parts) and delivers 360,000 cury capsule, "Faith 7," is carefully hoisted for placing Gordon Cooper tries on the helmet he will wear for 34 pounds Of thrust, Or Seven mulion norsepower, inis equivalent vl tu.uw jaoiciivi va.a. aiuu 1 Akla uiueici au -1 w vi. wMuavv.w, jiuuib iu uai:c uuiuig 1113 AmiuiL uiiik 111 1110 raun I Cooper's flight will probably be the last manned mission for the Atlas because it is too When the escape rocket is attached to the nose of the capsule. Closing the helmet's visor actuates a valve ti puny to lift the two-man Gemini and three-man Apollo capsules. 2,500-pouna capsule, me enure Auas-mercuiy wiu lower innate an airtigi 95 feet. seal around the visor. to CAPE CANAVERAL (l!Pl- Whcn L. Gordon Coopsr Jr. crawled into his little spacecraft, he was a'.varc that death might be looking over his shoulder. There was nothing strange about his awareness. Every test pilot who ever flew has pos sessed it. And all of the astro. nauts have known all along that sooner or later a space pilot of their generation or ones to come would die in the performance of duty. This does not, however, mean that the Mercury astronauts have ever brooded much about the harards of their trade. They are all intelligent men. They know what the dangers are. And they know everything that has been done to assure their safety in the face of danger. Five men bofore Cooper put their lives on the line to test the dependability of rocket-spacecraft combinations in the Mercury pro gram. Their faith and their con fidence were justified. So it was a confident Cooper who went aboard his Failh-7 spacecraft. If anything should go wrong with his mighty and poten tially explosive Atlas booster, he knew that an automatic safety system would go into action in seconds to carry him away from danger. If anything should go wrong in orbit, he knew that backup equip ment could instantly be put to work by himself or his moni tors on earth to make things right again. In past flights things have gone wrong, and the deci sions made and actions taken to correct them have been the right ones. So it is safe to say that Cooper felt little if any fear. He was too busy, for one thing. For another, he had every reason to have faith in the people and the equip, ment to which he was entrusting himself. ". The fact remained as one veteran once put it that "every time an astronaut gets into his capsule and is strapped down for flight, he knows it may be his last day on earth." Cooper Family Awaits Orbit With Variety Of Emotions TAYLOR LAKE VILLAGE, Tex. UPI Mrs. L. Gordon Cooper took her two daughters into se clusion today for her husband's expected attempt to orbit the earth 22 times. She declined, through a Nation al Aeronautics and Space Adminis tration spokesman, to comment on the possibility that clouds may force a delay or postponement oi her husband's llipht. "I'm happy everything seems to lie going OK, is the most she has said in recent days about the flight. The Coopers pretty Mi s. Trudy Cooper, daughter Camala, M.and daughter .lanita. 1 will not ven ture out of their home until astro naut L. Gordon Cooper is safely down from his flight. A NASA spokesman from time to time will tell the reporters be sieging the Cooper home what they are doing and what they have to say, if anything. Cooper's wife refused to admit any anxiety for her husband. But Cooper's mother, Mrs. Hattie Cooper, in Tccumseh. Okla.. ad mitted she was worried, but at the same time eager for her son to get on with the flight. "Now that they are all set, I'm real eager for them to get on w ith the flight," Cooper's mother said. "I know Gordon is eager .too We're ready. "Of course, I worry. Mothers always do. Mothers always fear the unknown. But if his strength gives out. the good Lord will pro' vide a little more. Cooper's wile and two daughters and his mother watched their tele vision sets for news of the flight. So did Cooper's maternal grand mother, Mrs. Orena Herd, with whom his mother is staying in Tecumsch. Cooper is a native of Shawnee. His father. LeRoy Gordon Cooper Sr., died in 1960 of cancer. His mother now lives in Carbondale, Colo., hut came to Tccumseh for a visit. Cooper's w ife and daughters live in the Houston area, as do the other astronauts, because the manned spacecraft center is Houston. Taylor Lake Village is a development of $.10.noo-$5fl,ooo homes near Houston. ?'ri2 ' '.-..4?. r,..,-..5,.tf 1 I II I 1 - I MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER Tracing the planned orbif of astronaut Leroy Gordon Cooper on a globe of the world ere Cooper's mother, Mn. Hattit Cooper, left, of Carbondale, Colo., and grandmother, Mrs. Orena Herd of Teeumseh. Mrs. Cooper plans to spend "orbit days" with her mother in Teeumseh, Okla. UPI Telephoto ? i,i i,-' - i wV- o" ''X - r if i f iltr . t 5 . - . . I ' ' -; u " iyiui'P'"i I Mi u - w J.- h ilf ess f I 'ci ' .Ci Lit J .' . TT ffl ., ..." ' 1 J "71,;. . HIM? . -i" Outposts On Islands, Deserts Track Capsule 2irW' ' ... . V .,.' M: L0 : VT ' -rfe, ?'V " '' i'-''' M fn" I ICC MADUAI U.. ri,,Jn rum. imila. . ilia goes to her car to take her daughters Jan and Pam to their classes at Wrbiter Junior High School. The girls had gone to school yesterday when the shot was post poned, but stayed home today to watch their father on television. UPI Telephoto Tiny Television Camera Goes Aloft With Cooper tiny television camera lhat you can hold in one hand opens the way for millions of Americans to become "armchair astronauts." The camera went aloft with as tronaut L. (iordon Cooper Jr. on his planned 22-orbit journey through space, marking the first lime that a television device had been used on a U.S. manned or bital mission. Scientists put the camera along side Cooper to give Americans in their living rooms on earth a view through the portal of the astro naut's hell-shaped Mercury space capsule. There were a mvriad of views possible the vast panorama of space itsell. or an inward peek at the astronaut during wcizht- lessness within the tight confines of the spaceship. The camera, without its lens. measured 2 13 inches in diame ter' and A inches in length. It i:i made of aluminum and weighs just 2'i pounds. The schedule called for Cooper to lake the pictures himself. The camera was rigged to a transmit ter that could flash the photo graphs at the rate of two frames per second back to three receiv ing stations on earth. The master receiving station is at Cape Ca naveral. Equipment here was set up to record the transmissions on video tape. The National Aeronautics and Spare Administration planned to release the tape In tejevisinn networks for nationwide transmission. --''-'r HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS Here are Go-den Cooper's two teen-age daughters, Jan, left, and Pam at they leave their home on way to school in Webster, Te. The gir'l stayed home today to watch the e;tronaut in orbit. UPI Telephoto iWlv f. V 3.1.4 ? ' I',, -1 J n. ASTRONAUT'S DINNER Beef sandwiches, grape juice concentrate and fudge cake enriched and concen trated identical to those which astronaut Gordon Cooper will use durinq hit tpace flight, are displayed here. Holding the food templet it Dr. Lawrence Dietlein, head of the tpace medicine branch of the Manned Space craft center in Houtton. UPI Telephoto 1. CAPE CANAVERAL 7. INDIAN OCEAN SHIP li SOUTH "X"? ' ; vtl-' 2. BERMUDA 8. WEST AUSTRALIA CALIFORNIA (S. ZlK J 3. MID-ATLANTIC SHIP 9. WOOMERA. 1J. WHITE SANDS J 0 " ' ' " frt XT t. CANARY ISLANDS AUSTRALIA 14. WEST MEXICO J . V" , : 5. KANO, NIGERIA 10. CANTON ISLAND IS. SOUTH TEXAS . f , ' r, ' QJ, . ft. . ZANZIBAR 11. HAWAII It. ELGIN AH . (T 1n-pi . , p ORBIT OUTPOSTS Map pt the network of communications stations which will follow the Mercury capsule around the world when America send its first astronaut into orbital night. The stations are connected by means of radio, sabmartne cables and land lines. Hub of the entire system wiu be Goddard Space Flight Center In Beltsville, Md. ""!" " ' jr. '":";, - . ,. far' fCfr x v 1 i ' i , i (--. , i I r " f'jr? t Local transportation was pressed into service in this case, a camel during station construction en Grand Canary Island. 1 . , - - 'IL. - K. Native craw puts finishing toockes en Project Mercury tele mttry building et Kano, Nigeria, one of a world-wide network. Good view is afforded this tracking and communications site sn,r frub cotintty stretches out for lonely distances around ....... i Okie) nlitAsI Uamumo H'ltiia j a -a UaataM 1iimIih locoted atop Tranquillon Mountain near Port Arguello, Lour. . r...,k,., H,u..,u .,u.,v .,. ,V !f - : If, . ' . fe-.' .'fStf.x Russians Expccfed To Launch More Spectacular Space Shots WASHINGTON HTH - I' S officials expect Russia this year to launch sevrral space shots more spectacular than L. Gordon Coop er's 22-orhit mission. The lint of thfse may be im minent. On the basis of known Soviet roiket pocr and the apparent trend of the Russian spaie pro. c,ram, officials have listed the fol ioninj poMihililiet: A manned orbital llicht of eiclH days to tet systems lor later moon mision and to net further information on human re action to weightlessness. A rendezvous mission in which manned satellites would he cou plrd in orbit. This also would hr in preparation for an attempt to put men on the moon in some later year. Tin launching of a tuo-msn spacecraft. U.S. space officials believe Rus sia has enough rocket power to send a manned spacecraft around the moon and back, although this shot may not be on the Soviet program for I9M. Actually, the Russians could at tempt to land men on tlie moon now If they had perfected the ren deivous technique. But unless they have an unsuspected new and more powerful rocket, this wmild require nearly 15 separate launch ings Into earth nrhil. These launching would be used to assemble a spacecraft which then would take off lor the moon An attempt of this magnitude ap pears highly unlikely until the Russians have tested the rendez vous method. The Russians are perhaps two years ahead of the United Stales in manned space flight. This coun try has put four times as many spacecraft Into orbit as Russia hut the Soviets hold a substantial weight lead. They are not perfect, however Informed and responsible sources list more than two dozen failures which the Russians have never acknowledged. Space Ship At-A-Glance CAPE CANAVERAL 'tPI' As tronaut L. Gordon Cooper's tpace capsule at-a-glance: Name Fiith-7. Dimensions 9t feet tall, six fat across the base. Wright at launch-About 4 000 pounds, including escape tower. Weight In orbit About 3,000 pounds. Weight alter landing AMul 3.- 400 pounds. Fuel supply i6 pounds of hy drogen peroxide. Batteries One 1.S00 watt-hour, battery annd (tve 3.000 watMinuf batteries to provide power fof mission and for landing. Hatch Fxplosive. which can he jettisoned by pulling a plunger In side capsule or by pulling a ca ble. Hatch also may be removed by outside recovery teams. ( i.
