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

Exploring the Unknown 197
16. “At 2 minutes, normal periodic transmission was made, and, of course,
I gave all systems ‘GO’ at that point. I remember feeling particularly happy
at that point because the flight was proceeding very smoothly here, the
capsule was working very nicely as far as I could tell. I also called out an
additional acceleration of, I think, 5-1/2 g here.
17. “Cut-off as far as I could tell on the clock came exactly on schedule,
right around 142 seconds, 2 minutes and 22 seconds on the count. The
tower jettisoned. Immediately I noticed the noise in the tower jettisoning.
I didn’t notice any smoke coming by the porthole as I expected I might
in my peripheral vision. I think maybe I was riveted on that good old
‘tower jettison’ green light which looked so good in the capsule. I threw
the ‘retrojettison’ switch to disarm at this point as I noted over RF, and
‘capsule separation’ came on [page A17-19] green right on schedule at
2 minutes and 32 seconds. Aux damping at this point, I thought, was
satisfactory. I don’t remember reporting it specifically because I reported
the periscope coming out, and I think at this point I was going to report
it, but the turnaround maneuver actually started on ASCS. 6 I remember
reporting the turn around maneuver, and at that point, at about 3 minutes,
I went though hand control motions 7 , as was noted, and I started switching
to the manual control system. I switched of course to pitch first, pitched to
retroattitude, and back to orbit attitude. The ASCS controlled in yaw and
roll as I was doing this. I then switched next to manual yaw, and ASCS roll
still continued to function. I switched then finally to manual roll. I was
in the full manual system and found that controlling the capsule was just
about the same as it been on the trainers.
18. “I did not pickup any noticeable noise of the jets. I think if I’d had
time I might have been able to decrease the volume control of the voice
radio circuits and picked it up but at this point I didn’t have time to
investigate it. I remember thinking that I did not hear the noise of the
manual jets firing at this time.
19. “I controlled fairly close to orbit attitude on manual and then switched
to the scope, and the picture in the scope certainly was a remarkable
picture. Unfortunately, I had a filter in the scope to cut the sunlight
down on the pad, and I did not feel that I had the time to reach it and
change it on the pad. It was difficult for me to reach the filter-intensity
knob with the suit on without bumping the abort handle with the wrist
seal bearing of the left arm, so as a result I remember saying, ‘Well, I’ll
leave the periscope filter in this position and try to remember to change it
later on even though it may get me in trouble.’ Of course, actually, it did,
because I had in the medium gray filter which very effectively obliterated
most of the colors. Clarifying that last remark, there is no question about
being able to distinguish between cloud masses and land masses. This is
very easy to do even with a gray filter, and I was able to distinguish the low
6. Automatic Stabilization and Control System
7. A psychomotor test of positioning the hand controller at predetermined positions.