U. S. HURLS MAN 115 MILES INTO SPACE ;SHEPARD WORKS CONTROLS INCAPSULE ,REPORTS BY RADIO IN15 -MINUTE FLIGHT

RETURN Astronaut rides in one of helicopters carrying his Mercury capsule to the Lake Champlain

3.8

ASTRONAUT: CommanderShepard removes space suit.

IN FINE CONDITION

Astronaut Dropsthe Sea Four Miles

From Carrier

Excerpts from radioed reportsby Shepard, Page 8

Associated Press WirephotosSAFE ABOARD : On the Lake Champlain's deck , Comdr . Alan B. Shepard Jr. views capsule he occupied

LAUNCHING Rocket lifts the capsule

By RICHARD WITKINSpecial to The New York Times .

CAPE CANAVERAL Fla.,May 5 - A , cool Navy testpilot was rocketed 115 miles

into space. .Thirty -seven -year -old Comdr .

Alan B. Shepard Jr. thus became the first American spaceexplorer

Commander Shepard landedsafely 302 miles out at sea fifteen minutes after the launching. He was quickly liftedaboard a Marine Corps helicopter.

" Boy what a ride!" he said ,as he was flown to the aircraftcarrier Lake Champlain fourmiles away .Extensive physical examinations were begun immediately.

Tonight doctors reported Commander Shepard in " excellent "condition,suffering no illeffects.

Major U StepThe near -perfect flight represented the United States ' first

major step in the race to explore space with manned spacecraft

True, it was only a modestleap compared with the oncearound - the-earth orbital flightof Maj. Yuri A. Gagarin of theSoviet Union.

The Russian's speed of morethan 17,000 miles an hour wasalmost four times CommanderShepard's 4,500 . The distancethe Russian traveled was almost 100 times as great.

But Commander Shepardmaneuvered his craft in spacesomething the Russians havenot claimed for Major Gagarin

All in all, the Shepard flightwas welcomed almost rapturousContinued on Page 8 Columr

The New Jork TimesPublished: May 6 , 1961

Copyright © The New York Times

ASTRONAUT SENDS

DATA FROM CRAFT

COMMUNICATIONS

SIDE HATCH SYSTEM

INSTRUMENT WINDOWPANEL

MAIN E

CHUTES

Shepard's Condition Fine

After 15-Minute TripFrom Cape Canaveral

PITCH & YAW

CONTROL JET

HEAT

SHIELD

ATTITUDE

CONTROLLER

ESCAPE

INITIATORHORIZON

SCANNERSCOUCH

ANTENNA HOUSING PERISCOPE

( EXTENDED )

REGOVERYAIDS

ROLL CONTROL JET

ENVIRONMENTALCONTROLSYSTEM

DRAWING of capsule's interior by National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Continued From Page 1, Col. 8

ly here and in much of the noncommunist world as proof thatthe United States, though several years behind in the spacerace, had the potential to offerimposing competition.

Commander Shepard , a nativeof East Derry , N. H., was a longtime starting his journey .

He lay on his contouredFiberglas couch atop the Redstone missile " the least nervous man of the bunch ," theflight surgeon reportedthree an a half hours while thelaunching crew delayed thecountdown because of weatherand a few technical troubles .

Finally , at 10:34 East

ern daylight time, the countreached zero . A jet of yellowflame lifted the slender rocket

off its pad as thousands watchedanxiously from the Cape andalong the public beaches southof here.

Hundreds of missiles had beenlaunched here, but never beforewith a human being aboard.Only once before, so far as isknown, had a human ridden amissile into space anywhereand that was from the Sovietbase at Tyura Tam , near theAral Sea last month

The rocket, and the pilot inthe Project Mercury capsule ontop, performed flawlessly .

Commander Shepard kept uprunning commentary with the

command center during theflight. He experienced timesthe force of gravity during therocket's climb, then there werefive minutes during which gravity seemed to have vanished .The abrupt re-entry into theatmosphere pressed him into hiscouch with a force of more thanten times gravity .

At , his capsule descending by a red and whiteparachute, Commander Shepardradioed, as if returning from aroutine flight by plane:

" Coming in for a landing "Drops Gently to Water

The capsule, dropping then ata fairly gentle thirty feet a second, hit the water at 10:49A. M. The commander, apparently as sound and healthy aswhen he had entered the capsuleat 6:20 A M., radioed that hewould climb out immediatelyrather than ride inside it to thecarrier .

A horse-collar - like sling waslowered from Marine helicopter44 and he was pulled aboard,less than five minutes after hitting the gently rolling waves.His first words were :

" Thank you very much . It'sa beautiful day "

A minute later the capsulewas hooked and flown, danglingbelow the helicopter, to a mattress - covered platform on thecarrier. Moments later, as hundreds of sailors cheered , theastronaut , his silver space suitgleaming, debarked from thehelicopter

Instead of going directly tothe admiral's quarters belowwhere he was to receive a thorough physical examination andpour out his fresh impressionsof his journey , he jogged to thecapsule to retrieve his spacehelmet.

The formalities below wereinterrupted when a callinto the carrier bridge from theWhite House . It was PresidentKennedy

Very Thrilling RideA naval officer who overheard

the conversation quoted the astronaut as saying

" Thank you very much, Mr.President. Itwas certainly avery thrilling ride I'd like tothank everyone who made itpossible."

While being checked by thedoctors , Commander Shepardtold one :

" I don't think there's muchyou'll have to do to me, doc."In the twenty - four to fortyeight hours following the flightCommander Shepard is todergo the physical check -upsand interviews.He is resting tonight at Grand Bahamas Island

All aboard the carrier, exceptfor two physicians, were understrict orders not to speak tothe astronaut unless he asked

questionThe precaution was taken so

that the astronaut's reactionscould be recorded with the meagerest possible distortion by intervening discussions.

The chief physican on the carrier, Comdr . Robert C. Laning,reported the astronaut in " excellent physical condition ."

Commander Shepard's firstrefreshment was a glass of orange juice. He told the dactorthat he was " thrilled and experienced a great sense of humility."

Go to Washington

The astronaut spent two hours

and twenty - five minutes on thecarrier , then was flown to aspecial clinic on Grand Bahamawhere the examinations and

questioning continued.There, after an extensive ex

amination , Col. William Douglas, personal physician for theseven astronauts , found Mr.Shepard in " excellent shape andhealth . He doubted that thefurther tests to be made wouldshow any ill effects.

Plans are to fly Commander

Shepard to Washington Mondayfor a hero's welcome and ameeting with President Kennedy.

What were the scientific contributions made by the fifteenminute Mercury flight ?

Chief among them , accordingto Dr. Hugh A. Dryden , DeputyAdministrator the NationalAeronautics and Space Administration , was information onthe reactions of the astronautunder the stresses of spaceflight.

Commander Shepard was reported to have performed nodifferently during the actualrocket flight than he had indozens of practice flights inground simulators and whirlingcentrifuges

He was able to click off

moment-by -moment reports onthe operations of the complexarray of mechanisms, withoutmissing a beat His voice remained normal except duringthe exposure to the maximumgravity force . Then it became

strained, had the voices ofall astronauts during training.

In addition , Mr. Shepard wasable to control the attitude, or

position , of the capsule in spaceby operation of a control stick

that sent squirts of hydrogen

peroxide rushing from sixteen

strategically located jets .In this way ,

Shepard was able to change notthe path of the capsule, whichwas determined by the ballistictrajectory established by therocket, but the angle at whichthe capsule flew through space .Turning levers the

to

the pitch ( nose up or down )yaw ( right left motion ) and

roll of the capsule .The astronaut also regulated

the ' of the capsule forthe of retro or backward -firing rockets and firedthe rockets as the capsule

started descending towardearth. For the sub-orbital flightthe of the three retro

the blunt nose of thecapsule was only practiced.inorbital flight, the retroets are necessary to slow downthe capsule and start it returning to earth

Commander Shepard talkedabout his experiences " flying"the capsule to Capt . RalphWeymouth, skipper of the LakeChamplain .

" He told me, " the captainsaid "that four or five yearsfrom now , we may look backat this as a pretty crude thingbut a this moment it seemed atremendous event. "

Dr. Stanley C. White of theAir Force said there had beenvery little change in the astronaut's pulse or respirationthroughout the flight

Temperatures both in thecapsule and in the astronaut'sair - tight air -conditioned doublelayer space suit rose onlyslightly during the friction generating descent atmosphere.

According to Dr. White, thesuit temperature rose from 75to 78 Fahrenheit during reentry and the cabin air temperature rose from 99 degreesto 102

To indicate the decelerating !impact of the atmosphere ,was calculated that the capsule ,in one minute , slowed from a

speed of 4,227 miles an hour at

forty miles altitude to 341 miles

an hour at twelve miles altitude .

The Mercury capsule was acompact, 2,300 pound steel andtitanium craft shaped somethinglike a television tube. The astronaut lying on his couchagainst the blunt "picture" endof the tube, had about as muchspace he he would in the cockpit of a jet fighter plane.Before him were panels containing more than 100 switches,

buttons, and levers for performing such functions as firingretro rockets; switching radiochannels ; turning on and off themanual control jetsout the escape hatch at theside and extending or retracting a periscope with which hecould monitor operations of devices not visible to the directview porthole down through hislegs.

The barrel- shaped capsulebore the name of " Freedom 7"

painted in white letters on theblack side of the capsule. Thename was thought up by theseven Mercury astronauts

There were many emergencythat the astronaut

himself could initiate in casethe automatic and ground-controlled systems both malfunctioned.

Perhaps most important wastriggering of the escape tower,a rocket powered atopthe capsule that would carrythe capsule up and away fromthe Redstone booster if troubledeveloped anywhere fromlaunch pad to burnout and separation of the booster.Commander Shepard did report that he encountered several " unexpected sensations ."

One was what he termed " abit of roughness" during theearly part of the flight, apparently when the Redstone nosedits way upward through thesonic barrier

There also was a bit ofwobbling when one of the retro - rockets was fired .

Otherwise, the commandersaid everything went likeclock work .

Space agency officials wereasked whether any special insurance policies had been takenout to cover the astronaut incase he had been killed or injured.

The officials did not know ofany

The New York TimesPublished: May 6, 1961

Copyright © The New York Times