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

192
First Steps into Space: Projects Mercury and Gemini
It is too early to say anything as definite for the risks of orbital flight.
Nevertheless, if the planned program of tests is carried through it seems probable
that the situation at the time of the first flight will be comparable to that for
a Redstone flight now – a high risk understanding but not higher than we are
accustomed to taking in other ventures. [19]
MEMBERSHIP
of the
AD HOC MERCURY PANEL
Dr. Donald F. Hornig, Chairman
Dr. Paul Beeson
Mr. W. John Beil
Dr. Milton U. Clauser
Mr. Edward H. Heinemann
Mr. Lawrence A. Hyland
Dr. Donald P. Ling
Dr. Robert B. Livingston
Mr. Harrison A. Storms
Dr. Cornelius Tobias
Mr. Douglas R. Lord, Technical Assistant
Dr. James B. Hartgering, Technical Assistant
Special Consultants to the Panel
Dr. Alfred P. Fishman
Mr. Paul Wickham
Document I-35
Document Title: MR-3 Technical Debriefing Team, NASA, “Debriefing,” 5 May 1961.
Source: Folder 18674, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History
Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington DC.
At the conclusion of the suborbital flight of the first American astronaut into space on 5 May
1961, a NASA team debriefed astronaut Alan Shepard on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lake
Champlain soon after his recovery from his capsule’s water landing. This transcript of his
debriefing captured critical information about the mission, the performance of the spacecraft,
the ability of the astronaut to function in space, weightlessness, and the success of the various
systems that made the flight possible. It offers immediacy to the first American steps into
space. It also set the precedent for debriefings after all future space missions. This interaction
was followed by a more formal and extensive debriefing that took place upon return of the
astronaut to the Langley Research Center.