_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [31]
The other possibility was equally simple. If the retro-pack straps did not hold, the first American to orbit Earth would return as ashes.
The managers in Mercury Control decided not to alarm Glenn by alerting him to the problem. This pissed off Alan Shepard, and Glenn heard it in Shepard’s voice. Then, over Canton Island, the tracking station told him to leave the retro-pack in place.
“Why?” he asked.
“You’ll get the word over Texas,” Canton said.
Now, Glenn was pissed. His heart picked up a beat. For the first time in his mission he was concerned. It was not an unfamiliar role for the ace test pilot and combat veteran. He took a deep breath and relaxed his body. He would deal with it.
The Texas station confirmed he was to leave the retro-pack on through reentry. Exactly at four hours, forty-three minutes, fifty-three seconds into the flight, he had to manually override the separation switch and retract the periscope and seal its outer doors. He passed out of radio range before he could ask questions.
Four minutes later, Friendship Seven was over Mercury Control at the Cape. Capcom Alan Shepard told flight director Chris Kraft and operations director Walt Williams in so many words to go to hell. He knew if he were in Glenn’s place, he would want to know. He keyed his mike and gave the whole explanation to John for retaining the retro-pack. The marine was angry he had not been informed earlier. But he understood the decision and told Shepard to pass on his thanks.
“Roger, John,” Shepard told him. “Hang tight, Marine. Navy has your back,” and right on schedule off the coast of California, the three retro-rockets fired at five-second intervals. Glenn felt three sharp thuds at the base of the craft. “I feel like I’m going back to Hawaii,” he reported.
Friendship Seven dropped slowly, skipping over the surface of the atmosphere a bit before sinking into Earth’s protective blanket. Instantly, Glenn could sense the heat build up. The capsule swayed. There was a sudden bang behind him: part of the retro-pack breaking away. He called the Texas station. He couldn’t get through. He had already plowed into the envelope of ionized air, and the ions kept any radio communications from leaving or entering his Mercury capsule.
John Glenn held tight.
Friendship Seven plunged deeper into the heat.
He could not have been more alone.
Alan Shepard tried to reach him. He was calling Glenn with an urgent message. He was trying to tell him to get rid of the retro-pack the moment he weighed 1g, his Earth weight, or greater. This could save Glenn’s life. It could keep the retro-pack from ripping his heat shield apart. The message banged against the ionization layer. It could not penetrate the ions and fell uselessly away, lost unheard in Friendship Seven’s wake.
John Glenn was cocooned inside a growing fireball, and through Friendship Seven’s porthole he saw this fireball devouring itself. A strap from the retro-pack had broken or burned free and was hammering against the glass. It burst into fire and flashed away with bits of flaming chunks of metal whirling and pounding past his view.
“It was a bad moment,” Glenn would tell me later. “I just hoped that everything would not come unglued. If they didn’t,” he smiled, “I would be okay. If they did, well…”
He watched the brilliant orange blaze and burning chunks flying by his window as he had watched the flaming remains of Mig fighters he’d shot down over the Yalu.
Then, he felt the gravity forces building. He could have hugged them. It meant it was all holding together, and he called Alan Shepard in Mercury Control. He was feeling pretty damn good, but there was no way to get through the ions. Not yet.
The heat shield on his back was hanging in there. It was 4,000 degrees outside, while he enjoyed a toasty and comfortable atmosphere inside Friendship Seven.
In Mercury Control they chewed their nails.
Notre Dame engineer Bob Harrington stood behind Alan Shepard. He was in charge of making Mercury Control tick. “Keep talking, Alan,” he begged. Shepard clenched his teeth