First Human in Space
With the success of the Mercury-Redstone flight the year prior, a second all-up test was planned to check and ensure changes could be affirmed to be working and in proper order and shape. A total of three more missions were planned during 1957, a test flight, a test flight with a Chimpanzee, and if all went well to this point, it would send the first human being into Space, fulfilling the dreams of Wernher von Braun, head of the Huntsville Space Flight Center, and catapulting America ahead of this increasingly crowed Space Race, primarily against the Soviet Union, but also with competition from Europe and Italy.
On March 19th, Mercury-Redstone 2 soared flawlessly from Cape Canaveral, with all systems performing without a trace of problems. News media reported this successful flight with jubilation, showing that it was complete proof that it was the United States that was going to send the first Man into Space. What had followed severely put a road block in the plans of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The launch of Mercury-Redstone 3 saw several problems begin to manifest themselves. A turbo-pump motor in the first stage had begun to pump fuel into the injectors at an increasingly rapid pace. Not only this, the capsule this time had a living companion on board. Ham, a Chimpanzee, was accelerated faster and faster on the rocket, prompting von Braun and his team, back at the cape, to order the Launch Escape System to fire, pulling the Chimpanzee away from the wayward rocket, where he was picked up by a recovery ship shortly after.
Ham the Chimpanzee on the recovery ship.
Telemetry data had shown what the problem was, but von Braun, ever the cautious man, ordered the final flight to be pushed back, and make Mercury-Redstone 4 a test flight, with another Chimpanzee on board, to make sure each and every problem had been fixed by the wayward fuel pump. On May 19th, the rocket lifted off without a problem, all data showing a good fix, and that the changes needed were fully in place. At a press conference, von Braun said that next month they were ready to put the first Man in Space. The man himself was revealed to be Navy Pilot John Glenn, who flew in Chile, and flew test air craft. The mission was planned for June 9th, 1957, and widely publicised world wide, hailing it as the definitive date at which man enters the cosmos.
On June 4th, amateur radio operators in Hawai'i began to pick up a transmission. Highly garbled and on a very high frequency, only parts of it could be made out, and even then, it was in Russian. The two who had found this out immediately contacted local police, hoping to alert them, thinking that this might have been the start of an attack. By the time the message had flown through the Army command, the signal was picked up by a NASA tracking station in Mexico. Here it was crisp and clean. "The flight is going well", "I am moving out of radio range", "I feel safe." The words, translated by a man who knew Russian there, could only help but confirm what many at NASA already knew.
Early on June 4th, a large rocket stood high and tall on it's launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the same one that was used to launch the ill-fated missions to Mars, and several of the moon probes that gave the Soviet Union an invaluable leap ahead of the Americans in exploring Earth's neighbour. As the early morning sun peered over the desert, there was little to be seen around, except the approach of a bus and several cars behind it. Inside, a person dressed in a large, bulky suit, with the letters "CCCP" emblazoned across the top of their helmet. As the bus came to a halt, they slowly stood up, and lumbered down the stairs of the bus, where they were greeted by several men who had a few words. The cosmonaut then moved towards the elevator, ascending high above the desert. Turning around to wave at those below, it was revealed that the person in the suit was twenty-one year old Valentina Tereshkova, destined to become the first woman, the first human, in space.
Before being helped into her capsule, she shouted "I'll return!" The Chief Designer looked on cautiously, knowing that this rocket had only had two test flights, but party higher ups, seeing the progress made by the Americans, needed to show an achievement. The selection process had not been easy, with the final selection made by the Politburo. Tereshkova, a textile worker who was born near Moscow, had been a part of the Soviet Union's parachuting campaign in the Urals since she was an early teenager, giving her a massive expertise in skydiving. The others selected came from similar backgrounds, most importantly ones in the military. But back in Moscow, there was a desire to show that she was a Daughter of the People. Not part of the army establishment, she was given an honourary induction into the Soviet Air Force, simply to gain the clearance needed to get to the rocket.
At 9:07 in the morning, Moscow time, the Vostok rocket clears the pad, pushing high into the sky. Tereshkova giving back readings of the gauges constantly, with those on the ground keeping contact with her. Unable to fly the craft, Tereshkova is forced to simply watch the data in front of her, and to gaze out of her window, becoming the first human to look back on the planet Earth from such a distance up. The boosters separated from the rocket, clearing the craft easily. The main stage continued its burn upwards, until it cut out, its fuel exhausted. The second stage kicked in, propelling the craft forward even more. At this point, Tereshkova reported back that all feelings of gravity had stopped, and that weightlessness had overcome her. With that stage burnt, the third one kicked in, boosting the spacecraft into orbit around the planet.
From here, Tereshkova gave her last reports to the ground, which were picked up by tracking station in Chile, and she sweeped out over Latin America and towards the Atlantic Ocean. She began to log the data she saw in front of her. Cruising over Africa and the Middle East, she came back in range of the tracking stations in the Soviet Union, which had begun the process of calculating when her retrograde burn, bringing her back down to Earth, should begin. Too steep, and the capsule will plunge through the atmosphere, burning up, too shallow, and the capsule would bounce off into deep space, never to return to Earth again. With a jolt, Tereshkova's capsule was slowed down by the engine, and she began her descent to the ground. In Eastern Siberia, she parachuted (reported in the Soviet media and world media as her riding to the ground with the capsule) around two kilometres above the ground. The landing site was off by a large margin, but luckily for Tereshkova, she had landed near a peasants farm, where she needed to convince them that she was a Soviet citizen, and had just returned from Space.
Tereshkova in a picture released by the Soviet Union.
The news was a crushing blow to the United States, and above all to Wernher von Braun. Once again, a step behind the Soviet Union, it was shown world-wide that von Braun and his Huntsville team still had yet to make anything close to the rockets owned by the Soviet Union. NASA's plan was to only place a man into space for a brief period of time, with no way of getting enough speed to establish an orbit. Nevertheless, the plans for the launch of John Glenn were forged ahead with, and the excitement was no less subdued than many thought it would be. At Cape Canaveral, von Braun stood by in caution, keeping in contact with Glenn. A small storm had moved into the area, delaying the launch, but few people left the site. Many simply wished to see the success of the United States, eager to show that they would not be very far behind the Soviet Union.
The mission, while supposed to be Mercury-Redstone 5, was renamed "Freedom 7" by Glenn, who was determined to show his resolve through the entire process. The rocket engine ignited as planned, pushing the vehicle high into the air. Glenn, who had control of his spacecraft, began the pitch commands, which would bring him over the Atlantic. With all systems reporting as nominal, Glenn announced the successful cut off the main engines, and the separation of the capsule from the rocket. At the same time, the Launch Escape tower jettisoned, leaving nothing but Glenn and his capsule as it began to cruise to its height. Passing the boundary of space, the information was relayed back to the ground, where they announced in jubilation that the first American had entered space. While only being in space for a few minutes, compared to the nearly hour of Tereshkova, it was clear that the United States would not be left behind in this race.
John Glenn in his space suit before his flight.
von Braun, after the flight, held up the accomplishment of the United States, saying that despite being behind, the United States was in it for the long haul. Glenn, who gave a speech detailing the entire flight, was overjoyed, as well as much of the press corps who were conducting the interview. While this was the atmosphere at the cape, across the country things were much more sombre. The success of the Soviet Union far outweighed the American attempts at space exploration, leading many in Congress to begin discussions on the future of NASA, and the size of their budget, which had grown to massive levels over previous rocketry research done by the United States. While there were still a large number of missions plans, and rockets in development, there was little to show for it at the moment.
Worldwide, the Soviet Union, and Tereshkova, basked in the glory of being known, once again, as being on the front of technological innovation and power. The United States, while keeping up, seemed to be behind in almost every aspect. The Soviet Union made sure to stress this, and news media flashed headlines calling the United States outdated in technology, showing that the Soviet way was the correct way forward. For the United States, the race was on to get a man into orbit around the planet, and to respond to the Soviet challenges with a bigger, and better, technological achievement.
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