SPACE FLIGHT “TEXTBOOK”

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30133, 17 May 1963, Page 11

SPACE FLIGHT “TEXTBOOK”

Cooper Sleeps, Experiments CAPE CANAVERAL, May 16. Mercury control verified “the almost textbook perfection” of the flight pattern of Major L. G. Cooper, who flew blithely around and around the world today in America’s most ambitious space shot, the Associated Press reported. Cooper is due to end a 22-orbit flight at about 11 a.m., New Zealand time, on Friday,

Off the const of China he will fire three retro-rockets to slow his flight, and 22 minutes later, after a fiery descent through the earth’s atmosphere. will drop into the Pacific Ocean, 4000 miles away, near Midway Island.

Mr* Cooper described her husband’s flight into space as "beautiful” and tuned in on his space craft radio with a special receiver as he soared overhead. Mrs Cooper had the radio installed in her home so she could hear her husband talking directly from his spacecraft. As he flies in and out of brilliant-hued sunrisea and sunsets. Coope. is keeping in touch with 14 ground stations and two tracking ships forming the 60 million dollars globe-girdling tracking network. H-Bomb Radiation During his fifth orbit of the earth, he began using elabor-

ate devices in his capsule for measuring radiation in’ space up to nearly 200 miles high. United Press International reported.

Scientists said they should have a better idea how fast the man-made belt of radiation in space is dying out after they study, the data Cooper gathers. The belt was created by nuclear weapons tests carried out in 1962 by the United States and the Soviet Union

At 1.45 p.m. <Thursday. New Zealand time), after 12 hours and 41 minutes of almost perfect performance by pilot and machine. Cooper began eight hours' rest, Tracking stations and control posts round the world were ordered to remain silent for eight hours, unless th? pilot himself asked for conversation.

-As the rest period began the tracking s.ation on Ascension Island said heart beats and respiration signals indicated Cooper had gone to sleep or was elose to it But he later talked to fellow

astronaut, John Glenn, m Japan, and said he was “looking out the window.” The only reported failure m the flight was an attempt to deploy a bright orange 30-lnch diameter balloon tethered to the capsule by a 100 ft nylon line, to measure drag Cooper tried twice to spring it out of the capsule before being told to give it up.

The chief object of the flight was to determine the effect of prolonged weightlessness on an astronaut. Up to the halfway mark, Cooper himself and his doctors on the ground, reading blood pressure, temperature, pulse, and respiration, reported no change in his excellent physical condition, Lesser objectives successfully met were:

Spotting a flashing beacon ejected from the capsule in a slightly different orbit. Cooper picked up the high-intenssty lights from as far away as 13 miles during darkness three hours later. This is important for future astronauts seeking to link separate capsules in space.

Bringing a live picture of the orbiting astronaut to the ground so that doctors and flight controllers could make a more thorough cheek on him. Engineer* reported fair pictures. They said the signal* from the spacecraft were good, but the picture quality poor because of lack of fight in the capsule, He also sent back live television shots through his window of Yucatan Peninsula. Mexico Sighting a brilliant highpowered ground light near Bloemfontein, South Africa. The thrde million candlepower bank of xenon lights were turned on for three minutes so Cooper could make a special observation. Like previous United States astronauts He was cheered bv the sight o'

a fully lit Perth in bi* honour.

Cooper had hi* first space meal after seven orbit*. He had a choice of dehydrated foods, some of which had to be remixed with water, including beef in gravy, chicken in gravy, peanut butter sandwiches, fruit bars, fruit cake (his favourite) bacon in tablet form, orange and grape juice. There has been less “space emitter" oiq this flight than on previous American missions This is because Cooper is “a pretty word conserving man," according to the operations director, Mr Walter Williams, and because of the length of the flight. Cooper passed the halfway mark in his space flight when he completed orbit No. 11 west of Chile at 6.24 p.m (New Zealand time).

Daring Cooper’s eleventh orbit, while he was over the Atlantic, his heartbeat suddenly jumped from a steady 60 hearts to 100 beats a minute. and then dropped back to normal.

Doctors at first thought Cooper had been dreaming, but telemetry data showed that the temperature on his space suit had slowly risen by 20 degrees. Cooper apparently became warm, awoke, reset the temperature and went back to sleep. Moments later tihe suit temperature was back to its previous reading. Cooper was awakened at 10.26 p.m. He had slept for more than seven hours before apparently waking naturally as he whirled around on his fourteenth orbit. Cooper is the last of the flight-eligible Mercury astronauts to fly in space. The seventh, Donald K. Slayton, was grounded because of a heart murmur. • Nine new astronauts watched as Cooper began his flight. They were named last year to increase the size of th astronaut force for the coming Gemini and Apollo flights, Intended as a prelude *o a moon landing