Evening star., 1962-01-27

Clouds which caused
rine Corps Col. John
hover over Cocoa Be
checked for pressure integrity
by Joseph Schmitt, a techni-
clan assigned to the astronaut
team.
Enters Transport Van
Col. Glenn emerged from
Hangar s at 4:45 am. to enter
the transport van that car
ried him to the launching
area. He was accompanied by
1t. Col. William K. Douglas,
an Air Force physician, and
Maj. Donald K. Slayton, the
astronaut who is now tagged
for the pilot assignment on the
Mercury : Atlas orbital flight
which will follow Col. Glenn's.
Col. Glenn greeted a group
of newsmen and technicians
with a CHEEKY wave of the
hand, but did not speak to
them.
The aStronauC's van reached
the launching pad at 5:04 am.
Five minutes later he entered
an elevator to ride to the top
of the gantry tower and entered
the space capsule at 5:12 am.
Almost three hours later, at
1905 am. the gantry tower-a
movable structure about 13
stories tall-moved back, leav-
ing the rocket, topped by it's
Mercury capsule, standing stark
against the sky.
View Impressive
From 5000 feet away the
view of the Mercury ATLAS
through high-powered field
glasses was impressive in the
extreme. Topping the whole
assembly, more than 100 feet
above the launching pad, was
a red rocket at the top of an
emergency escape tower. The
function of this rocket is to pull
the space capsule away from
the Atlas in the event disaster
threatened. This was only one
of a multitude of interlocking
devices designed to save Col.
Glenn's life.
Below the "abort" rocket and
its tower sat the capsule itself.
Even seasoned viewers found it
difficult to realize that this
cone-shaped, black can held a
man who might in the next
five hours or so sweep three
times around the earth, travel
ing thrice the distance that it
took Magellan'S crew of ex-
plorerS three years to cover.
7 Million Horsepower
Beneath the Mercury capsule
stood the sleek, shiny Atlas it
self. This monster, with the
power of more than Z million
horses, was almost unbelievably
insubstantial. Its stainleSs-steel
sides were no thicker than
a well-worn dime and it's con-
Struction was so fragile that it
would collapse under its own
weight if permitted to stand
for even an instant without
fuel or high-pressure gas inside.
The rocket, after the gantry
had been moved back, stood
alone except for an "umbilical
tower" AS the name suggests.
this is the only connection be-
tween a frail space baby like
Mercury-Atlas vi and mother
earth. Gables from the UNI
bilical tower are connected to
the space craft and rocket un-
til the instant of lift-off.
The tower, in today's case,
also served as the purpose of
the "cherry-picker" which at
tended Astronauts Alan B,
Shepard and Virgil I. Grissom
until the last moments before
their suborbital Redstone rides
last year. The cherry-picker
and the umbilical tower both
were there to enable the as
tronaut to crawl out of his
capsule and come back to
earth.
Taller Than Redstone
A cherry picker - a truck
like vehicle with a long boom
on it-could not be used with
; the Atlas for two reasons. One
was that the Atlas is about
80 feet taller than the Red
stone and probably too tall fol-
: cherry-picker to reach. The
other was that the frail Atlas
skin could not stand a chance
: bump by the cherry picker as
the Redstone's tougher hide
! could.
: The cloud cover continued
solid we'll on into the morning.
9 At $3.50, with the sun getting
j. reasonably high in the sky
there was no sign of a burn-oft
. of clouds. Lower, denser clouds
started materializing in the
= south and west, the direction
from which the weather was
developing.
j According to plans, Col. Glenn