Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

Exploring the Unknown
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Originally they had been viewed as minor participants in the flights by engineers
developing Project Mercury at NASA’s Langley Research Center in the winter
of 1958 to 1959. Numerous skirmishes took place between engineers and astronauts
in the development of the Mercury capsule, the “man-rating” of the launch
vehicle, and in determining the level of integration of the astronaut into the system.
Donald K. Slayton, who early took the lead for the Mercury Seven and later
officially headed the astronaut office, emphasized the criticality of astronauts not
as passengers but as pilots. In a speech before the Society of Experimental Test
Pilots in 1959, he said:
Objections to the pilot [in space] range from the engineer, who
semi-seriously notes that all problems of Mercury would be tremendously
simplified if we didn’t have to worry about the bloody astronaut, to the
military man who wonders whether a college-trained chimpanzee or the
village idiot might not do as well in space as an experienced test pilot . . . I
hate to hear anyone contend that present day pilots have no place in the
space age and that non-pilots can perform the space mission effectively.
If this were true, the aircraft driver could count himself among the dinosaurs
not too many years hence.
Not only a pilot, but a highly trained experimental test pilot is desirable
. . . as in any scientific endeavor the individual who can collect maximum
valid data in minimum time under adverse circumstances is highly desirable.
The one group of men highly trained and experienced in operating,
observing, and analyzing airborne vehicles is the body of experimental test
pilots represented here today. Selection of any one for initial spaceflights
who is not qualified to be a member of this organization would be equivalent
to selecting a new flying school graduate for the first flight on the B-70,
as an example. Too much is involved and the expense is too great. 75
Slayton’s defense of the role of the Mercury astronauts has found expression
in many places and circumstances since that time.
Notwithstanding arguments to the contrary from some quarters, officials
overseeing Project Mercury always intended that the astronauts should have control
over the spacecraft that they flew in. Making these devices safe enough for
humans took longer and exposed more doubts than NASA had expected and the
astronauts themselves aided immensely in moving this integration forward. As
the official history of Mercury reported in 1966:
During the curiously quiet first half of 1960, the flexibility of the
Mercury astronaut complemented and speeded the symbiosis of man
26 May 1960; U.S. Naval School of Aviation Medicine, “Proposed Schedule, Project Mercury (NASA)
Astronauts Training Program, 28 March-1 April 1960,” 11 February 1960. Folder 18674, NASA
Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.
75. Donald K. Slayton, speech, annual meeting, Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Los Angeles,
CA, 9 October 1959. Folder 18674, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Division,
NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC.