Astronaut Awaits Good Weather

Press, Volume C, Issue 29504, 4 May 1961, Page 15

Astronaut Awaits Good Weather

(N Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

CAPE CANAVERAL, May 3. Commander Alan Shepard, the 37-year-old naval officer chosen as America’s first spaceman, relaxed in his closely-guarded quarters at the vast Cape Canaveral missile base today.

The vagaries of the weather here and along the South Atlantic missile range in the next 24 hours are expected to determine when and if he will take his plunge into space 115 miles above the earth soon after dawn on Thursday. No official time has been announced for the next attempt after yesterday’s postponement. Special hourly meteorological reports flowed into the hangar area where Shepard and his understudy, Lieuten-ant-Colonel John Glenn, remained under the watchful

eyes of a team of medical specialists. Top officials of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are expected to decide tonight whether to go ahead with the attempt to i launch the Mercury space! vehicle on its 15-minute arc above the ocean. N.A.S.A. officials had no; comment on a report that a! liquid oxygen line in the] rocket had been damaged and that repairs probably would postpone the attempt until Friday. This report said X-ray examination showed the damage had occurred during yesterday's! fuelling operation. Shepard, an easy-going extrovert who jokes a lot. | was reported to be com-i pletely undismayed by the postponement of the first at-| tempt yesterday because of bad weather. Swathed in his silver aluminised space suit, he was within 15 minutes of leaving the “ready room” to walk to an air-conditioned whitepainted lorry and trailer for a three-mile ride to the launching site when the postponement was announced Both Shepard and Glenn shrugged and headed for their beds as the long process of emptving the highlv volatile liquid oxygen fuel from the Redstone rocket began. They knew no further attempt could be made before tomorrow morning at the earliest, because of the time it takes to drv out. Clean and prepare the Redstone for the next launching. But even today Shepard and thousands of technicians, engineers and scientists engaged on the project were uncertain how long it might be before he could climb into his tiny capsule perched on top of the rocket and be blasted off. Officially, everything depended on the weather 290 miles down range over northeast Grand Bahama, his landing point if all goes well. Project officials re-empha-sised that thev would not risk “shooting” until they were certain conditions for recovery were as nearly perfect as possible Because of this delavs could go on until next week. The "New York Time®” today reported it was unlikely the 'hot would be made until Friday, if then. The armada of Navy vessels and squadrons of aircraft and helicopters strung out in a vast air and sea network from Cape Canaveral to 600 miles out into the Atlantic reouired the best possible weather to find and recover the capsule if launched Mrs Shenard. the prospective spaceman’s wife, was unruffled by the postponement. ‘Tm just trying to live each day as it eomes” she said yesterday. She heard of the postponement at her home at Virginia Beaeh. Virginia, and went baek to sleep for about four hours She raid: “It took the pressure off fnr a while, then lit was possible to sleep.”