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EXPLORATIONS — a program in Special English by the Voice ofAmerica.
((tape Cut 1: countdown & launch))
that announcement was made May fifth, nineteen-sixty-one. It wasthe first manned flight of Project Mercury.
Today, Tony Riggs and Larry West tell about the beginning of theUnited States space program that carried humans into space.
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The United States entered the space age in nineteen-forty-five,at the end of World War Two. German rocket scientists, with thesupport of the German government, had spent fifteen years developingrockets as weapons. Near the end of the war, Germany began firinghuge rocket bombs at Britain.
Called V-2 rockets, the German weapons carried a ton ofexplosives three-hundred-twenty kilometers. They flew as high aseighty kilometers.
When the war ended, American forces found the parts for aboutone-hundred V-2 rockets. They brought the German rockets to Americaand launched sixty-six of them.
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The army opened the V-2 launch program to American scientists atseveral universities. Civilian scientists used the vee-two rocketsto study the earth’s atmosphere. They gathered much new informationand learned much about designing instruments for scientific rocketsand satellites.
Many of Germany’s top rocket scientists came to the United Statesafter the war. They worked with American scientists and engineers todevelop and test new rockets for military and scientific use. Innineteen-fifty-six, the United States launched a Jupiter militaryrocket that flew more than five-thousand kilometers.
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Military officials immediately offered to use the Jupiter to puta scientific satellite into orbit around the earth. But the Americangovernment said no. Officials decided not to mix military andcivilian rocket programs. The United States said it would not launcha scientific satellite until a non-military rocket — the Vanguard– could be completed to carry it into space.
Navy scientists were building the Vanguard for scientificpurposes. They planned to launch it in nineteen-fifty-eight.
The twenty-two-meter-long rocket would put a little scientificsatellite into orbit as one of the events of the internationalgeophysical year. The satellite itself would weigh less than twokilograms. But it would contain many tiny electronic instruments forscientific research.
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Soviet scientists also were working on rockets and satellites.
In nineteen-fifty-seven, a soviet military rocket carried a smallsatellite into earth orbit. The eighty-three kilogram satellite,called Sputnik, had two radios that sent signals as it circled theworld. One month later, a larger Sputnik was launched with a doginside. The dog survived the launch. But there was no way to returnit to earth. So it died in space.
A few months later, the Soviet Union put a one-thousandthree-hundred-sixty kilogram satellite into space.
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The Soviet successes with its Sputnik satellites caused theUnited States to change its space plans. Officials decided to launchthe Vanguard as soon as possible.
The attempt was made on December sixth, soon after the first twoSputnik launches. The attempt failed. The rocket exploded during thelaunch. Less than two months later, however, the United States putits first satellite into orbit.
The rocket was an army Jupiter. The satellite was explorer one.It weighed only fourteen kilograms. But it carried a great manyelectronic instruments for scientific research.
The instruments reported much new information about conditions inspace. The most important was the discovery of a belt of radiationaround the earth. It was what we now call the Van Allen Belt.
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Support was growing, in Congress and among scientists, for aUnited States civilian space agency. Soon, Congress passed a billcreating NASA — the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.President Eisenhower signed the bill into law.
Its job: the scientific exploration of space. Its major goal:sending the first Americans into space.
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The new space agency was given a lot of money and thousands ofengineers and technicians from military and civilian agencies.Within three months, the man-in-space program had a name: ProjectMercury. The name came from the ancient Greeks. Mercury was thespeedy messenger of the Greek gods.
Much work had to be done before project Mercury could put anAmerican astronaut into space. Dependable rockets needed to be builtand tested. A spacecraft had to be designed and built. A worldwideradio system was needed to communicate with orbiting astronauts. Andastronauts had to be chosen and trained.
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To save time, NASA decided to work on all parts of the program atthe same time. It placed orders for four different kinds of militaryrockets for Mercury flights. It chose the mcdonnell aircraft companyto design and build the Mercury spacecraft. And it began to look formen who would be astronauts.
NASA said its astronaut candidates had to be between twenty-fiveand forty years old, and in excellent health. They could be notaller than one-hundred-eighty centimeters. Candidates had to behighly intelligent, with an education in science or engineering.
NASA also said the first astronauts had to be military pilotswith experience in test-flying airplanes. Test pilots already weretrained to make quick, correct decisions in dangerous situations.
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One observer said in a joking way that the space agency was justlooking for a group of “normal, everyday supermen. ” But it was nota joke. NASA found seven normal, everyday supermen in a group offive-hundred candidates.
On April seventh, nineteen-fifty-nine, the space agencyintroduced the first American astronauts. They were Scott Carpenter,Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil Grissom, Walter Schirra, AlanShepard and Donald Slayton.
All were married and had children. All were from small towns orcities. All were about the same height, weight and age. And all wereexperienced military test pilots.
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Each of the new astronauts, however, brought his own specialknowledge and skills to the Mercury project.
Navy pilot Scott Carpenter, for example, was well-trained incommunications and navigation. So he helped with Mercury’scommunications and navigation systems. Walter Schirra, another navyflier, was an expert on the pressure suits worn by Navy divers. Hehelped design the space suits that would protect the Mercuryastronauts in space.
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Air Force pilot Gordon Cooper became an expert on the Redstonerocket that would launch Mercury astronauts on short trainingflights. Donald Slayton, another Air Force flier, worked on thelong-range atlas rocket. Marine John Glenn was an expert on airplaneinstruments. So he helped design easy-to-use instruments for theMercury spacecraft.
Navy pilot Alan Shepard helped plan Mercury’s worldwidecommunication system. And Virgil Grissom, of the Air Force, workedon Mercury’s electrical systems.
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NASA made its first unmanned test flight of the Mercuryspacecraft nine months after the project started. The launch wasmade from the space center at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The flighttested the heat shield. The shield protected the spacecraft from thegreat heat produced when it returned through the earth’s atmosphere.
Many other unmanned test flights followed in the next two years.
The final test flight was made at the end of January,nineteen-sixty-one. It carried a chimpanzee named Ham on aseven-hundred-kilometer flight over the Atlantic Ocean. Severalproblems developed. But Ham survived the launch and the landing inthe ocean. However, he never wanted to get close to a space capsuleagain.
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Space officials announced that astronaut Alan Shepard wouldbecome the first American in space. He would be launched early inMay, nineteen-sixty-one, on a short, fifteen-minute flight. Thatwill be our story next week.
(Theme)
VOICE 1:
You have been listening to EXPLORATIONS– a program in SpecialEnglish by the Voice of America. It was written by Marilyn RiceChristiano and Frank Beardsley. Your narrators were Tony Riggs andLarry West. I’m Shirley Griffith. Listen again next week to thesecond part of the story of the Mercury program that took the firstAmerican astronauts into space.