Highways Into Space: A first-hand account of the beginnings of the human space program by Glynn S. Lunney Read Free Book Online Page A

stay with them forever. They earned it. Today, looking back forty some years to the decade of the 1960s, I am still extremely gratified that these men and I were granted this historic opportunity. We were not necessarily the best and brightest in the whole world. But we certainly were the most passionate and the most committed to making the program succeed. Today, we still gather up on various occasions where the same opinionated comradeship and hassling of each other is the order of the day.
     

Chapter Five: The People and Moving Towards Operations
    In October 1957, Sputnik shattered American complacency and changed the world. The U.S. political system responded with remarkable speed and cogency. As has so often been the case in American history, there were at least two men in critical leadership positions, President Eisenhower and Majority Leader of the Senate Lyndon Johnson, who were prepared to lead and did so most effectively. As the political process moved through the fact-finding and the seeking of counsel, major legislation began which became the Space Act of 1958, forming NASA with its Space Charter.
    While the national policy deliberations were underway, the same emerging leadership process was occurring at the implementation level. NASA Headquarters (HQ) tasked Bob Gilruth in May to plan a program to put a man in space. Max Faget had already proposed a concept in a conference in March 1958. Building on that concept and with more leaders from the ranks of the Langley Center, such as Chuck Mathews, Chris Kraft and Caldwell Johnson, the leadership cadre of the Space Task Group rose and took command of the response to the Sputnik challenge. Their mission was to invent an American manned space program and to put it into flight safely and as quickly as possible.
    In June of 1958, my first month after graduation, I saw the first line drawing of what became the Mercury spacecraft, prepared by Caldwell Johnson from the Langley Center in Hampton, Virginia, and I knew it was my future. (Later in the ’70s, Caldwell and I would work closely on the Apollo/Soyuz project.) He was part of a group of engineers from the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division (PARD) and other units at the Langley Center. PARD had a similar research focus as the Lewis branch I was in. PARD testing was based on a ground launched solid rocket vehicle, known as the Scout. We both used the NACA range on the Virginia coast, centered on Wallops Island. And the Lewis Center test models were air-launched from a B-57. As a result of this common focus, we were asked to begin some special studies in support of this emerging man-in-space effort, to be later named Project Mercury.
    My Branch Chief was George Low, a highly respected engineer and manager. Within less than a year, George was also at NACA HQ, as a key leader in the study of what to do after the Mercury project. Out of this and other work, came the core ideas for President Kennedy’s later commitment to Apollo as a primary national goal. Looking back, I have to believe that the high regard which George had earned contributed to our being asked to join the Mercury team.
    So our work started on Mercury, first on a part-time basis. But very soon, it became full-time and increasingly intense. At first in 1958, most of my time was spent in Cleveland with occasional trips to Langley. Then, I began to travel to Langley, spending most of the week there. The work was like a whirlpool, drawing me into the trajectory planning and plans for a control center. Eventually, I had a permanent change of station (PCS) To Langley.
    The core of the Space Task Group (STG) was identified in a November 3, 1958, letter, requesting the transfer of thirty-six Langley personnel to the newly independent group. Not counting steno and file support, and with the status of one person changed to remain with Langley, there were twenty-nine engineers and managers put in place to create and manage the human space flight program. In 1958,