Light This Candle: The Life & Times of Alan Shepard--America's First Spaceman (43 page)

For the next half hour Shepard rambled breathlessly about each detail of the flight, at one point praising his overall performance: “I quite frankly did a whole lot better than I thou
ght I was going to be able to do. . . . I felt no apprehension
at any time.” Psychiatrists later reported that Shepard was “calm and self-possessed,” but they also officiously noted the obvious: that Shepard appeared to be exhibiting signs of “excitement and exhilaration.” He was absolutely drunk with self-satisfaction.

Then Shepard’s whirling monologue was interrupted by a phone call. A sailor handed him a big black phone, and Shepard heard the voice of his old flying buddy Taz Shepard, the drawling Alabaman with whom he’d trained back at Corpus Christi. Taz had been selected by President Kennedy to serve as his naval aide.

“Alan, the president wants to speak to you,” Taz said.

“By golly, old boy, you’ve picked up a New England accent,” Alan said.

Taz laughed and told Alan to hold for the president of the United States.

“Hello, Commander,” Kennedy said.

“Yes, sir.”

“I want to congratulate you very much.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. President.”

“We watched you on TV, of course,” said Kennedy. “And we are awfully pleased and proud of what you did.”

“Well, thank you, sir. And as you know by now, everything worked out just perfectly.”

Kennedy then said he was looking forward to meeting Alan in three days.

Years later Taz would describe how Kennedy had been “walking on thin ice” in the space between Gagarin’s flight and Alan’s. During those twenty-three tense days, he would fill his black alligator bag with news clippings and NASA reports to read at night. Kennedy was desperate for success and had been relying heavily on Alan’s flight. When an aide had given Kennedy the news that Alan was safely aboard the helicopter, the president broke into a grin and said softly, “It’s a success.”

“If it had been a failure, no telling what would have happened,” Taz recalled.

One of Kennedy’s favorite sayings was “Happiness is full use of your powers in pursuit of excellence.” In Alan and the other astronauts Kennedy had found exactly the type
of men he needed as allies in his pursuit of new frontiers. “President Kennedy had a great admiration for heroes,” recalled Taz Shepard, himself a winner of the Navy Cross (for taking command of his ship’s guns after the ship’s captain and two hundred others were killed at Guadalcanal). “Anybody who excelled at what they did.”

That afternoon, an enthusiastic Kennedy told the press that Shepard’s day was one for the history books: “All America rejoices in this successful flight of astronaut Shepard. This is an historic milestone in our own exploration into space.”

Kennedy might have been the most grateful beneficiary of Shepard’s success, but he was hardly alone in believing that Shepard had instantly earned a place beside Wilbur Wright and Charles Lindbergh in the history books. In fact, not since Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight thirty-four years earlier would the American public react so ecstatically to a feat of aviation. Spontaneous parades, parties, and celebrations erupted across the land.

Walter Cronkite, who would cover many subsequent launches, recalled decades later that none of the launches he witnessed would compare to that first space flight. He recalled that some of his crew members—who’d set up their equipment in the rear of a station wagon parked in mosquito- and snake-filled palmetto scrub a mile from the launch pad—broke down into tears. “There wasn’t a cynical enough press man in the gallery to not have a sense of great relief and a certain thrill that we were in space,” he said.

For the next few weeks the newspapers and magazines would be stuffed with stories and photographs and commentaries, boasting how “Shep did it!” Headlines in Henry Luce’s
Life
magazine trumpeted Shepard’s “Thrust into Space” and “Flawless Flight.”
National Geographic
would dedicate practically an entire issue to the flight.

And in subsequent years Shepard’s flight would continue to resonate as an event that legitimized NASA and propelled the agency throughout the 1960s. “Some countries build cathedrals,” said John Pike, director of the space policy project at the Federation of American Scientists. “We have a space program.”

With Shepard’s help, NASA was now set to grow into the dual-role behemoth it would soon become—a cold war propaganda machine and an agency of brilliant scientists and fearless explorers. NASA would reflect to the world an image of America as a nation of technologically advanced pioneers and risk takers.

“The presumption of the American republic is that we’re pioneers, that we explore frontiers, that we use technology in that pursuit, that we are a country with a special sense of our place in history. And, in various guises, I think that’s mainly what NASA’s been about. It’s mainly about making us feel good about being Americans,” Pike said.

Furthermore, in legitimizing the still young space program, Shepard’s flight gave a boost to the nation’s sense of inferiority to the Russians. “Shepard bailed out the ego of the American people,” recalled Julian Scheer, a reporter in 1961 who later became NASA’s public affairs officer. “As a nation we desperately wanted a success, and we got not only a success, but an instant hero.” Even John Glenn would recall his shock at the public’s reaction to his colleague’s flight. “That took us all by surprise,” he recalled.

Shepard spent about an hour on board the Lake Champlain, which included a medical debriefing—“Were you asleep at any time?” “No.” “Did you experience an urge to defecate?” “No.” “Were you conscious of any odors?” “Urine.” Then Shepard climbed into a dual-engine C1 transport plane that roared off the deck of the Lake Champlain, leaving behind the cheerin
g sailors. Shepard sat up in the cockpit chatting with the pilot. When it looked as if cloud cover would make for a difficult landing at Grand Bahama Island, where Shepard was scheduled for another three days of tests and interrogations, he joked to the pilot that they should divert to Nassau for some liberty.

Shepard drank a cup of coffee on the hundred-mile plane ride and arrived at Grand Bahama giddy and hungry—he’d lost three pounds since breakfast. He was greeted by Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, and Deke Slayton, who told him, “You pulled it off real good.” As Shepard downed a huge shrimp cocktail, a roast beef sandwich, and iced tea, Schirra, knowing that the capsule’s periscope was a poor substitute for a window, asked his friend about his breathless report from the heavens.

“So, Alan, what was that ‘beautiful view’ stuff?”

Shepard laughed. He said he knew that somebody was going to ask him how the earth looked, so he’d had his less-than-poetic one-liner ready from the start. “Shit, I had to say something for the people,” he said.

Shepard’s $400 million flight had cost “the people”—as in, 180 million Americans—$2.25 apiece. But its success also caused an immediate boost for the stock market, especially among space-age stocks such as IBM and Douglas Aircraft. Wall Street also saw an uptick in distillery and brewery stocks, which the
New York Times
attributed to “the fact that many Americans were toasting the success of the astronaut’s feat.”

It wasn’t even noon yet. But his quarter-hour flight, which took him just 302 miles from the Cape—even Louise called it “just a baby step”—was about to change everything in his life and Louise’s.

Doctors reported that despite losing three pounds over the previous ten hours, Shepard was “in the best of shape, in the best health, the best of spirits, and just like he was before he left the Cape—only happier.” Then they began probi
ng him, photographing every inch of him, drawing blood, and collecting stool, urine, and semen samples, until Shepard complained of the “unusual number of needles.”

“I hope that fewer bodily fluid samples are required in the future,” he said.

During another debriefing that afternoon with Walt Williams, an attractive young secretary brought in a tray of coffee, and Williams laughed as he saw “Shepard’s brain get up, leave the room, and follow her down the hall.”

Thousands of letters and cables from around the world were already on their way. A barrage of reporters were itching for a piece of him. He had always complained about NASA’s level of openness with the press and how it sometimes interfered with training. Now reporters would camp out in front of his house and lob questions at his daughters and even their teachers. He thought he had shielded them from the limelight. But he hadn’t anticipated becoming a hero.

“This is one of the burdens of a free society,” he’
d later write.

In time, however, he’d learn how to turn that burden to his advantage.

That night, just past 5 P.M., he called Louise. The connection was full of static, and they had to yell to be heard. He told her about the phone call from “our friend Taz Shepard” and then mentioned his chat with “another friend—Jack Kennedy.” Louise laughed, relieved to hear her husband “being himself.”

Later the other astronauts and a small group of NASA officials held a small party for Shepard at the base club on Grand Bahama Island. Shepard, Schirra, Shorty Powers, Walt Williams, and a handful of others played darts and drank many glasses of Cuban rum late into the night. Shepard slept soundly that night, with Grissom in the bunk beside him to make sure nothing strange happened to America’s spaceman during the night.

The next evening, after another day of tests and interrogations and a brief attempt at fishing for bonefish, Shepard relaxed in a folding chair, sitting beneath the stars while watching a film that was projected against a wall at the base’s makeshift outdoor movie theater. He seemed so at ease, happy to be far from the reporters and the politicians he’d soon face. The movie was
The
Grass Is Greener,
starring Louise’s favorite, Cary Grant.

15

“I believe we should go to the moon”

As they descended toward the White House, a flock of pigeons rose from the ground, an explosion of wing and feather that engulfed the helicopter. Louise gasped and her hand rose to cover her mouth. Shepard just laughed and grabbed her hand. It was a sunny, muggy Washington day. As the Marine pilot guided the helicopter safely through the birds and landed, President Kennedy rushed over to greet Shepard. Jackie Kennedy took Louise by the arm and they walked ahead of the men, looking like sisters.

Joined by his parents and his six astronaut colleagues, Shepard then stood before a small crowd beside the Rose Garden. Kennedy stepped to the dais, thanked Shepard for the “service he has rendered our country,” and attempted to award him the Distinguished Service Medal. But the medal slipped and fell to the ground, and the two men nearly bumped heads reaching for it. When Kennedy then handed it to Shepard, he said it “has gone from the ground up,” which Shepard thought was a “great line.”

After the ceremony, Jackie took Louise, her mother, Shepard’s mother, and his sister on a tour of the
White House, while Kennedy took Shepard and the other astronauts into the Oval Office. The president sat in his rocking chair and listened, rapt, to Shepard describe the details of his flight, repeatedly interjecting how “fantastic, just fantastic” he thought it all was.

Shepard pointed out that Kennedy’s advisory committee— the “pee-sack” people—had shown a “surprising lack of confidence” in humans’ ability to survive weightlessness and that his flight had proved “man can perform effectively in space.” Kennedy gushed with questions. His enthusiasm for the space program impressed Shepard, who could tell that Kennedy wasn’t nearly as timid as the committee had been. Then Kennedy surprised everyone in the room by hinting at the historic announcement he would soon make.

“We’re not about to put you guys on a rocket and send you to the moon,” Kennedy said. “We’re just thinking about it.” The astronauts exchanged looks. They knew a moon launch had been discussed by NASA and that the Russians seemed headed toward the same goal, but they were surprised to learn of Kennedy’s interest in the moon.
My God!
Shepard thought, then told Kennedy, “I’m ready.”

Then Kennedy had an idea. “Come with me,” he said to Shepard. “I want you to meet some friends of mine.” He whisked Shepard into his limo for a three-block drive to the convention of the National Association of Broadcasters and introduced “the nation’s number one TV performer,” which earned Shepard a standing ovation. Shepard felt as if he had become Kennedy’s new pet; indeed, Kennedy was blatantly cozying up to the TV people he’d need as allies in the subsequent months of the space race.

In time, Shepard would come to appreciate the good fortune that came with being a personal friend of Jack Kennedy’s. And Kennedy, in turn, knew that in 1961 he needed someone exactly like Shepard to teach the nation about courage—someone, as he had written in his book
Profiles in Courage,
willing to “push his skiff from the shore alone.”

Later that morning, one of the largest crowds in Washington history jammed Pennsylvania Avenue to get a glimpse of Shepard in the first of many astronaut parades. Alan and Louise rode in a convertible with Vice President Johnson, who was astounded at the parade’s turnout. Children had been let out of school and businesses gave workers the day off. “Look at these people,” Johnson yelled in Alan’s ear. “They love you.” Then he offered some avuncular advice: “Shepard, if you’re going to be famous, you have to remember two things: Never pass up the opportunity for a free lunch, or to g
o to the men’s room.”

Shepard cringed when he saw that they hadn’t provided a car for Slayton and Glenn, who tried to hitch a ride in a car full of reporters. The reporters didn’t recognize Slayton, didn’t believe that he and Glenn were astronauts, and refused to give them a lift until a NASA official intervened.

After the parade Shepard was supposed to attend what he thought would be a quiet reception and luncheon with a few congressmen at the capital. Instead he walked into a “throng-packed, pulsing room of congressional leaders.” He tried hard to maintain his nonchalance, but the realization set in quickly that he was now a bona fide celebrity.

New York City began making plans for a ticker tape parade to rival the one given thirty-four years earlier to Shepard’s hero, Lindbergh. The
New York Times
had already declared that Shepard’s fifteen-minute arc through space “roused the country to one of its highest peaks of exultation since the end of World War II.” The Soviet press agency, Tass, belittled the flight as “inferior,” and Cuban premier Fidel Castro called it “a desperate effort.” But the world knew the communists were now in for a fight. In Chile hundreds had thronged outside newspaper offices awaiting word on his flight. “
He’s Up There” and “Space Man Friday” blared the headlines in London’s papers. An editorial in the
Times
of London exclaimed that Shepard had “exorcised the demon of inferiority that had possessed Americans.”

Amid such global hype, the reporters at Shepard’s Washington press conference on the afternoon of May 8 were largely respectful of the second man to leave the earth’s atmosphere. Early in the hourlong session, a reporter said, “Commander, as a celebrity of whom we are all very proud, no one has yet asked you how you would solve the world’s problems.” Shepard replied, “I hope they don’t.”

From that point on, he controlled the reporters like a kindergarten teacher, rewarding them for good questions while chiding or ignoring them for the bad ones. One reporter asked if he had spoken to Louise the night before the flight, and what— “if it’s not too personal”—he had said. Shepard responded, “Well . . . it is too personal.”

James “Scotty” Reston of the
New York Times
called him a “cool master of the news conference” who “fielded the questions like a pro” and “revived the faith of a sad and disillusioned city.” It was an impressive performance for someone who had recently described himself as “neither a statesman nor a politician” but merely “a public servant.”

Shepard would never allow his instant fame—or the press—to intrude on his private life. “Becoming a public figure overnight was a little difficult at first,” he once said. “I hadn’t really expected it, all of a sudden realizing that people wanted autographs, didn’t always ask at the right time, they weren’t always polite, and they sort of figured we were public property because they were taxpayers.” Shepard could occasionally be gracious with strangers seeking his attention or his signature on a napkin. But he could also be acidic and viciously abrupt. One day he and Louise were relax
ing on towels draped over the hot Cocoa Beach sand. An autograph seeker approached, and Shepard gave the man such a violent dressing down that a NASA official wrote a letter of apology.

Shepard’s flight—exactly six months to the day from Kennedy’s election—and the nation’s euphoric reaction emboldened Kennedy to ask Congress for even more money for the space program. By year’s end, the space budget would soar toward $5 billion—ten times more than had been spent during the previous eight years and the equivalent of fifty cents a week for every American. Kennedy acknowledged it was “a staggering sum” but pointed out that it was still less than Americans paid for cigars and cigarettes.

Space, said Kennedy, was “the new ocean,” and he was determined that the United States would sail on it “and be in a position second to none.” Three weeks after Shepard’s flight, he staked his legacy on a promise: to send an American to the moon.

Kennedy gave one of his most historic speeches before a joint session of Congress on May 25. “Now it is time to take longer strides,” he urged the country, “time for a great new American enterprise.” He acknowledged that space exploration— especially when conducted “in full view of the world”—entailed enormous risks. But, he said, “as shown by the feat of astronaut Shepard, this very risk enhances our stature when we are successful.”

Kennedy then asked Congress and the country to commit to sending a man to the moon, “and returning him safely to the Earth,” by 1970.

He looked up from his prepared speech and declared, “I believe we should go to the moon,” and then asked that “every scientist, every engineer, every serviceman, every technician, contractor, and civil servant give his personal pledge that this nation will move forward, with the full speed of freedom, in the exciting adventure of space.”

Kennedy would face harsh criticisms for emphasizing a moon landing ahead of education and other social programs on his priority list. He had admitted in his lengthy speech that he “came to this conclusion with some reluctance” and that all
Americans would have to “bear the burdens” of his costly goal. He knew that committing America’s dollars and talents to a moon mission was a risky proposition and among the “most important decisions” of his presidency. But Kennedy believed strongly that a moon program would create jobs (especially in the South and West, which carried the added benefit of yielding political gains and votes), yield technological advances, and—maybe most importantly, in the aftermath of Yuri Gagarin and the Bay of Pigs— boost America’s image and morale. As Lyndon Johnson (who headed the National S
pace Council) had advised him, a successful moon program offered “great propaganda value.” Johnson said that, “in the eyes of the world, first in space means first, period. Second in space is second in everything.” Kennedy’s science adviser, Jerome Wiesner, said years later that Kennedy “became convinced that space was the symbol of the twentieth century. [The moon program] was a decision he made cold-bloodedly.”

Kennedy’s advisers had told him that because the Soviets had gained the early lead in the space race, one way for the United States to surpass them would be a bold, long-term, and very expensive program aimed at putting a man on the moon. At the current rate of rocket development, it seemed the United States might be able to reach the moon by 1968 or 1969, they told him. But some advisers said the price tag—some $20 to $40
billion—
would eliminate other space programs in the planning stages, such as the creation of a space station and the exploration of Venus and Mars. Kennedy
felt those other programs could wait and that the sole purpose of NASA should be reaching the moon ahead of the Soviets, “to demonstrate that instead of being behind . . . by God, we beat them.” Such a brash decision was also consistent with Kennedy’s “affinity for heroic causes and the whole spirit of the New Frontier,” as one of his biographers put it.

The nation’s reaction was at first mixed. A Gallup poll immediately after Kennedy’s speech found that just 42 perc
ent of Americans supported a moon program. Back at Langley, Shepard and the others were thrilled, but wondered aloud, “Is this guy nuts?”

Two weeks after Kennedy’s historic pledge, Gus Grissom and his
Liberty Bell 7
capsule performed a virtual replica of Shepard’s flight—save one near-deadly difference. After Grissom had splashed into the Atlantic, the hatch suddenly blew off the side of his capsule, its explosive bolts sending the door spinning off into the water. With its doorway wide open, the choppy Atlantic began pouring into the capsule, and rather than sink with the can, Grissom dove into the water. A helicopter latched on to the top of
Liberty Bell 7,
but it was quickly filling with water, and the chopper’s
engines began overheating. Meanwhile, Grissom splashed and waved and yelled to get the attention of a second helicopter’s pilot. A valve on the front of his pressure suit, where the oxygen hose had attached, was open and sucking in salt water like a straw. Water began filling the legs of his suit, and he felt himself being pulled under. Frantically he screamed up at the second helicopter, whose pilot was apparently watching the first helicopter release Grissom’s capsule, letting it plunge to the ocean floor. Just as Grissom thought his lungs might collapse, he grabbed for the horse collar a
nd was winched up into the helicopter, furious at the pilot—and himself.

Losing a capsule showed the nation what an imperfect science Kennedy had committed them all to, and what a dangerous pairing humans and rockets could be. At the follow-up press conference, Grissom acknowledged that in those waterlogged moments, he had been afraid. In response to a disbelieving reporter, Grissom snapped, “I was scared. All right?” And Grissom would spend the remainder of his life defending himself against claims that he must have blown the hatch himself, by accident. Grissom said no, the damn thing had just blown.