_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [36]
That was the end of it. The flight was Gordo’s.
Two days before Cooper’s scheduled liftoff, the launch team was on an around-the-clock readiness schedule with his Atlas and spacecraft, and our NBC crews were setting up our broadcast trailers for the launch. Everyone was hard at work when suddenly we heard a tremendous BOOM rip through the launch-pad complex. Nobody saw flames. Everyone was certain there had been an explosion. But there was no smoke rising, no buildings collapsing…
Then we saw it. Cooper’s jet howled away from the Cape in a dizzying climb after laying down a supersonic thunderbolt across the launch center. It was his friendly way of saying, “Morning, everybody!”
His thunderous arrival was the art of “buzzing,” a tradition that dated back to the Wright brothers, and was hardly new to fighter pilots of Gordo Cooper’s skills. It was a ceremonial rite for the astronauts now, as it had been before they’d ever considered going into space.
Never-smile Walt Williams was standing in his office when Gordo and his F–102 shot by at window level. The sonic boom shook the building, made him drop the papers he was holding and sent his hands to stop his heart from leaping out of his throat. He spun around cursing and stomped into the outer office, where Alan Shepard sat.
“Does you spacesuit still fit you?” he bellowed.
“What?”
“Simple question, Shepard,” he shouted. “Does your spacesuit fit?”
Shepard played dumb. Again. “Why?”
“Because I want to know if you’re ready to step in for ‘hotdog,’ that’s why!”
Shepard made a valiant effort to suppress howling laughter. After all, he was hardly innocent of such buzzing greetings himself; he’d shaken more than his share of windows on Cape Canaveral. But he took the diplomatic route. He managed to calm down the irate, foot-stomping operations director and got him to join him and Deke at Henri’s bar that evening.
“We’ll talk about it then,” Shepard assured Williams, before walking outside and grabbing his stomach for his own belly laugh.
That evening, Shepard and Slayton pumped a couple of drinks in Williams and managed a smile from the much-too-serious Mercury boss.
The Mercury Seven stood solid. They told the operations director flatly that Cooper was flying the mission, and Shepard added with a tone not to be challenged, “Gordo has earned that seat, and there’s not a pilot among us who’d step in and take it away. Certainly not me.”
End of discussion.
As Project Mercury’s final launch approached, the Gemini Nine judged they should show reverence and respect for the Mercury trailblazers. They planned an elaborate dinner for the Seven, and Henri Landwirth lent his motel’s kitchen to the likes of Pete Conrad, Gene Cernan, Jim Lovell, and Neil Armstrong. Then he helped the gang of nine with their dastardly deed.
They advertised the Mercury Seven’s dinner as a magnificent meal of breaded veal, potatoes au gratin, tropical salads, and the finest imported wines.
Well, at least they made good on their promise of the finest of imported wines, and the Mercury astronauts mumbled their surprise and thanks to the new group. They immediately began the required toasting and bestowing of good wishes and fortune on one another. It was comradeship at its finest, a measure of friendship to warm hearts and minds. Then sixteen astronauts sat down to enjoy the gastronomical repast.
The lavish feast was served by waiters using silver trays from Henri Landwirth’s own collection. The Gemini group had prepared a sumptuous feast of fried breaded cardboard likened to veal; putrid, au rotten potatoes blackened from their own decomposition; and a bellied-up salad that had been steaming in the hot, tropical sun all day. Silence descended.
Gordo Cooper sat quietly, telling himself, “This ain’t my first rodeo.” He had, indeed, been here before. His own reputation at air bases around the world had been built on