Hello everyone! :) Considering that November is Space Month on this blog and everything I thought I might launch a new monthly column! It's called "Armchair Astronaut", and in it once a month I'll be posting about a space book I have recently read. Sooo....the "Armchair Astronaut" book for November 2010 is A Ball, A Dog, and A Monkey, by Michael D'Antonio.Remember last month I wrote about the anniversary of Sputnik? Well, one awesome thing about A Ball, A Dog, and A Monkey is that this book covers Sputnik and afterwards. Always before I've read books about Mercury, Apollo, or the Space Shuttle, but I've never read a book on Sputnik, or the world reaction afterwards. Which is one reason why I just loved A Ball, A Dog, and A Monkey!
A Ball, A Dog, and A Monkey starts out talking about American reporter James Reston his and family taking a never-heard-before car trip to Moscow in September 1957, just a matter of weeks before the Sputnik launch of October 4. As Reston prepared his article for The New York Times, he distinctly noted the difference of American and Soviet societies, and the superiority of America.
However, Reston and the rest of the Western world had quite the surprise/shock coming when on October 4, 1957 the USSR's rocket Chief Designer (Sergei Korolev) and team launched the first-ever man made satellite into outer space. I believe Sputnik means "fellow traveler". People all over America and really the world eagerly started listening for the satellite's beep-beeping. Newspapers all over published the times and places in which Americans could see Sputnik for themselves. Sky-gazing and rocket-building clubs sprang up all over the place. Some were mere amateurs, but some clubs became quite professional. The Russians themselves had made known the particular frequency that Sputnik would be on, and wisely choose a frequency that many people could tune in to.
Almost before America knew it, the Soviet Union had achieved another space spectacular: Launching a dog into space. They called this mission Sputnik II, and the lucky (or unlucky, as you may look at it) canine was named Laika, which meant "barker".
Unfortunately, the Russians had not mastered re-entry yet and while she was still in space Laika went through a planned death. Naturally several American humane societies protested against the Russians for this so-called act of cruelty. Cruelty aside, the Russians had proved several things: First, that they could launch a second rocket/satellite within a month of launching the first. Second, Sputnik II was much heavier than the original Sputnik satellite, and three the Soviets proved that they could, at least for a while, keep a creature alive with life-support systems.
Now back to America. Before reading A Ball, A Dog, and A Monkey I had not really realized how long and what particular years Eisenhower was in presidential office. Before I had just assumed that the original Sputnik happened just mere months before Kennedy was sworn in. Well, when I read A Ball, A Dog, and A Monkey my eyes were opened and I learned many things! Previously I had not realized how much Eisenhower had to deal with space and other such things. When I did the math, I realized that Dwight Eisenhower was in office for just over 3 years after Sputnik.
And that brings me to my next point. Just like little children, America's various military branches kept arguing
and arguing about who was going to put America into space. There was the favored Navy with its Vanguard program, and they got the first shot at putting America into space. There was the Army's Redstone program, which was not favored and kept getting pushed to the back burner, even though it was the Army who had the only really well working booster, or rocket. And then there was the little Air Force, with its Thor, Atlas, and Navaho rockets. It seemed that since the Air Force had been formed just a few years before, every other military branch thought that it was inferior and should have no piece whatsoever of the America-in-space pie.For example, Army workers would chant as the the Navaho rolled out to the pad, "Navaho will never go! Navaho will never go!" To tell the truth, Navaho didn't go, failing for the first 10 out of 11 attempts!
After Sputnik I Eisenhower had declared that there was no space race. However, he insisted that the Navy launch a satellite with its Vanguard by December 1957. If that's not a race, then what is? :P
Anyway, this book captures the good, bad and ugly of life at Cape Canaveral, where all the rockets were launched. Some of them worked. Most of them didn't. But at any rate, it is very interesting to read about.
But I have to tell you some stories about the Cape and missiles. See, a lot of the missiles were called IRBMs, or ICBMs, for Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile or something. One time, a missile went crazy and almost became an IPM (Inter-pad missile)!! ;) Thankfully the control room was able to self-distruct the rocket before much damage was done. Another time a rocket landed in the Banana River, near the Cape. During the night two people came to the spot of the downed missile and on the riverbank planted a rather historical, official looking sign that announced that this rocket was an IBRM, or In-the-Banana-River-Missile! ;D
A natural step between unmanned missions and manned ones were to put animals in space. Both the US and the USSR did this, and some of the US's first animal astronauts were mice. Unfortunately, the fatality rate of these little creatures was high. A lot of times, the animal would not survive. They might not survive the blazing hot re-entry, or perhaps the capsule might not be found, or if it was the little passenger would be dead.
Since rockets malfunctioned so often, the various military branches would not reveal to the public the little creatures, or attach names to them. The Air Force had sent two of the mouse species into space, and they had not come back. But officials finally succumbed to the pressure, and with their third mouse they decided to have a press conference with reporters who would cover the event. The 3 month old creature played in her glass jar as reporters delightedly got information from an Air Force Captain. AP reporter Jack King had a good name for the mouse: "Wickie Mouse"! The public would love the name, as it was related to Disney's "Micky Mouse". "Wickie Mouse" liked to drink water from her wick, and thirdly around the cape there was a young female reporter who was called "Wickie". All things considered, Jack King had picked a good name, and everyone liked it.
"Wickie Mouse" was launched into space fine, but her "mouse house" was never found. An airplane thought they had found Wickie, and dropped a beacon to mark where she was. But when other aircrews came, they found nothing. And after 6 hours of hunting, the Air Force called a stop to the search. While unfortunate for the mouse, the Air Force was quite perturbed that they had failed to retrieve an object from space for the third straight time.
Still working with animals, the Navy decided to send up a 9-month old squirrel monkey named Gordo. Trained in Pensacola, he was overseen by Dr. Norman Lee Barr, one of the Navy's early flight surgeons. Gordo was nicknamed "Old Reliable" because he would fall to sleep on such a regular basis. He was launched fine, and spent eight minutes in space happily chattering away. Unfortunately, Gordo suffered the same fate as did "Wickie Mouse". See, scientists and especially Barr wanted him back to analyze. So this could happen they had installed two parachutes to Gordo's capsule. As re-entry played out, the parachutes worked fine, but Gordo overshot the recovery forces by about 5 miles! By the time helicopters and other efforts had moved 5 miles, they found no Gordo. The Navy figured that Gordo's capsule had flooded when he hit the watery surface.
OK, OK! For all of you who are really crying out there over the past two stories I will share a happy one! :) Don't worry, with this story I will conclude my article. :) OK! So Eisenhower and other military officials were trying to figure out how to achieve a space first before the Soviets did. Finally Eisenhower authorized a secret plan, to launch what really became a predecessor of modern communication satellites. But this project, called Project SCORE, was very secret. Only a few--88--people knew really what was going on. (By the way, SCORE stands for Signal Communication from Orbiting Relay Equipment or something like that!) Curtis Johnston, one of the big guys at the Cape, was very suspicious. While not in on the secret, he was receiving some very peculiar orders from his boss. Take out this payload and exchange it for this super-secret one. Remove the self-destruct mechanism. Don't worry about what anyone says, just do it. So Johnston did, even though the quality control guy was going wacko. When SCORE was launched in December 1958, one of the first signs that SCORE was unusual was that its readings went off all the tracking stations' scales. Combined with his previous ideas, Johnston figured that SCORE, aboard an Atlas rocket, had gone into orbit.
And indeed it had! Project SCORE was in orbit. But SCORE wasn't just up there to whirl around the globe; it had a definite, exciting function to perform. Soon after SCORE reached orbit, a tracking station communicated with the satellite, which started playing a Christmas-type message from President Eisenhower himself! While shaky, and not very good reception, SCORE was replaying a pre-recorded message on command.
Well I just looked and realized that my "little" book review here has turned more like into a book! :P Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed it and I certainly hope you try to read A Ball, A Dog, and A Monkey soon. It's an awesome read of America's first days in space, and introduced me to many people I had never heard of before.
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