The Unbroken Chain

Epilogue - Where Guenter went

Even in retirement, I was not completely detached from space center activities. Three times a week I played tennis with people still active at the Cape. I kept up with all the rumors and developments. Actually, I felt like an ocean liner crossing the sea. I had moved on, but my wake continued to followed me. With thirty years of rocket fumes still in my veins, I did not consider myself really separated from the program.

One of the things I was most looking forward to in retirement was the ability to travel the globe and see the world’s great places. Over the years I-had done a lot of traveling. I had been on a safari in Africa, had visited the pyramids of Egypt, the great temple of Bangkok, and India’s Taj Mahal. During my first year of retirement, I visited Fiji and the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. That was a truly fantastic trip. Following that, I made an extensive trip through Alaska.

In 1991,1 noticed that Hernia’s health was once again deteriorating. She had remained on the experimental treatment for all this time. The results had been excellent until now. In 1973, her prognosis had been for only another year of life. The drug therapy that had been started in 1974 had given us an additional seventeen years so far, but it was becoming clear that the cancer would ultimately win the war. We took another extended trip to Germany to visit family and many of her old friends. I knew we were there to say good-bye to them. Early in 1993, she passed away.

Now, with a lot of time on my hands, I had to learn how to keep house by myself. My daughters were all grown and married and for the first time in my life I was alone. One thing I was sure of: I would never make a great cook. It seemed that I preferred being out on my boat to spending time in the kitchen. I have always been a strong, resilient personality and I quickly regained control oyer my life.

In 1995 I received an invitation to attend the premier showing of the movie, Apollo 13. The film was an accurate dramatization of Jim Lovell’s ill-fated flight to the moon with Fred Haise and Jack Swigert. Plans for the movie, taken from the book Lost Moon which was co-authored by Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger, were started even before the book was completed. Both the book and film were given a huge amount of pre-release publicity and you would have had to have been a castaway on a deserted island not to know about it. I was very interested to see it and witness the drama of a big-time Hollywood premier.

The film, itself, was outstanding. Jim Lovell was played by actor Tom Hanks. While there was not a lot of physical similarity between the two, 1 thought that Tom had done a superb job of capturing Lovell’s persona. The producer, Ron Howard, had gone to great lengths to insure accuracy. Of course there were a few glitches, for example the appearance of Guenter Wendt in the room while the crewmen were suiting up (I would have been at the pad at that time), but all in all it was a very accurate portrayal. Probably the most glaring mistake was in the casting of Ken Mattingly. Ken was as bald as they come, but the actor who played him, Gary Sinise, had a full head of hair. I was particularly impressed with their simulation of weightlessness. They went to the extreme of putting mockups of the command module and lunar module cockpits inside of one of NASA’s KC-135 zero gravity simulator aircraft. This was the famed “vomit comet” where astronauts were trained for spaceflight. The actors were filmed in the cockpit mockups while the aircraft flew a series of huge parabolic arcs. The reason that these scenes in the movie looked so good was simple. The actors were really weightless when the scenes were shot! I was quite impressed.

At the reception after the movie I met Ron Howard and Tom Hanks. During our conversation, Tom mentioned that he would like to do a television mini-series about the history of the Apollo flights. He questioned me about helping out with some of the technical details. A very interesting possibility, I thought. The thing I was most concerned about was their desire for accuracy. If it was going to be some type of fictionalized account like the movie The Right Stuff, I told him I would not be interested. He assured me, though, that it would be accurate. He wanted to portray the program factually and the people as they really were. It sounded like a worthwhile project and I asked him to get in touch with me when he was ready to get started.

In early 1996 I was introduced to a very special lady who had also spent several years working at KSC on the Shuttle. Her name was Ellen Jean Goodman. She had grown up in the small town of Coalwood, West Virginia where her neighbor had been a boy named Homer Hickam. Like Ellen, he went on to spend many years in the space program. But his ultimate fame came when he wrote a book entitled Rocket Boys. It was made into a hit movie whose name, October Sky, was taken from the letters in the book’s original title.

In May of 1996, Ellen Goodman became Mrs. Wendt. After the wedding we took a three week trip to Germany to introduce her to the homeland. In spite of a few problems with communication - many of my relatives spoke very little English - Ellen enjoyed the journey thoroughly. It gave her more of a global perspective and whetted her appetite for further travels. Upon our return to Florida, we set up housekeeping in a new condominium in Titusville. It was straight across the Indian River from Merritt Island, in a direct line with Complex 39. From the dock where my boat was moored, we continued to watch each Shuttle that was launched into space.

Early in the following year, I received a telephone call from a gentleman who introduced himself as Richard Toyon. He was the Production Designer for Go Flight Productions. HBO had set this company up to create the series that Tom Hanks had told me about. It was to be called From the Earth to the Moon and Tom was to be the Executive Producer. Assisting him in the role would be producers Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Michael Bostick, the group that had been responsible for Apollo 13. Richard invited me to meet with him and the production crew at their MGM Studios location in Orlando.

I gathered up a batch of photographs and some of my old tools and made the short drive to the studios. When I got there, Richard introduced me around and then showed me some of the sets they were constructing. I immediately noticed their interest in accuracy. They had done a lot of research and everything looked remarkably as it should. The asked me all the right questions and I was very impressed. The production was going to be a very big deal. Costs were expected to top $50 million. Twelve episodes would span the years from 1961 to 1972, with the bulk of the story covering Apollo 7 through 17.

A few days later, a car pulled up at my home in Titusville. The messenger asked if I had any photos of myself from the late 60’s without a hat on. They were in the process of casting the actors and needed to see what my hairdo looked like. I found out that the fellow they had hired to play me was a Shakespearean actor by the name of Max Wright. That was pretty interesting since he was going to have to develop a German accent for his role. But he did look quite a bit like a period version of me. His only shortcoming was that his voice was much deeper and I may have been slightly more handsome.

A few weeks later, Max came over to the house and we spent a couple of days together. We discussed the closeout crew activities and emergency egress procedures. Max’s biggest role would be in the third episode. It covered the mission of Apollo 7 and would be entitled “We Have Cleared the Tower.” He and I reviewed the script and it was obvious that “our” character was going to be a very significant part of the story.

Joining me with the title of Technical Advisor was astronaut Dave Scott. He had flown in Gemini and twice in Apollo. Dave was the seventh man to put his footprints on the lunar surface. In the mini-series, he would be responsible for insuring that the astronauts acted like astronauts. It was his job to make sure that all their movements and dialog, especially those inside the spacecraft and on the moon, were accurate. As the scripts were written, Dave and I received copies for review. Tom Hanks wanted each episode to have a unique feel, so different directors were hired to create each episode. The director chosen to head up Episode 3 was Lili Zanuck. She was the daughter-in-law of Darryl Zanuck. famed director and founder of Twentieth Century Fox. She was a very likable person but turned out to be quite demanding once filming actually started.

Wally Schirra was to be played by actor Mark Hannon. He had already starred in a number of movies and I particularly remembered him from a series of popular beer commercials he had done on television. My daughters were all considerably enamored with him.

The first major sequence that was filmed was a flight crew egress from the command module, supposedly during one of the tests on Pad 34. We went through all of the individual steps that we used to do. The actors were positioned in the white room, just as they would have been during Apollo 7. These, and most of the scenes involving the spacecraft, were shot at the Orlando studio location. MGM/Disney had leased a large warehouse and duplicated several sections of the command module and lunar module inside the huge building. Other scenes, including the elevator and outdoor walkways, were shot out at 39B. We had modified it to look pretty much like the old pad at 34. Obviously, we could not modify the structure, but scenes were carefully framed to show small sections. These sections were painted and props added to transform them into reasonable facsimiles of their Pad 34 counterparts. Although the structure had been demolished at Pad 34, the round concrete blockhouse still remained. It was used as the site for the scenes that occurred there.

I was amazed to see what a challenge making a movie is. It is not the simple process you might think. Just getting all the actors and extras in place at the right time along with the necessary props and equipment is a logistics nightmare in itself. Then the scene is frequently shot and re-shot several times to make sure that everything is right. To get three minutes of action in the movie may require three to four hours of filming. Another confusing point is the sequence of production. When you see a movie, you see it in a linear fashion. One scene follows another. But in reality, these scenes are all shot out of sequence. A location which appears in the film at the beginning and again at the end will be set up for shooting just one time. All the scenes using that location are shot, then they tear down and move on. It is entirely possible that the last scene in the movie could be the first one that is actually filmed.

Working with Mark Harmon was a blast. He had spent several days out in California with Wally and was well versed with Wally’s gotchas. One time we had shot some scenes at the NASA Headquarters building at the Cape. After lunch in the cafeteria, I took him over to one of the gift shops in the building. He promptly began filling his duffel bag with souvenirs. As he swung the bag over his shoulder, he swept three porcelain figurines off the counter onto the floor, smashing them to pieces. The next day a large cartoon appeared on the set, much like the cartoons we used to create in the space program. It showed a picture of an astronaut destroying racks of expensive souvenirs in a gift shop. These Hollywood folks were starting to get the hang of things.

Tom Hanks popped in and out from time to time. During one scene in the white room, he asked me to provide the gauge readings which we would have registered during real cabin leak checks. In another scene where controller’s stations were shown, he insisted that coffee ring stains be duplicated just as he had seen them on the real consoles in Houston. In a segment that Tom directed, he played the part of a reporter on the TV program, Meet the Press. The shooting had dragged on until 3:00 in the morning and everyone was ready to quit for the night. There was a ritual of asking everyone if they were happy with the shot -cameras, script, lighting, producer - before it was called a wrap. I mentioned that Tom’s tie had been crooked all during the scene. I guess I probably got a lot of nasty looks since Tom decided to re-shoot the whole thing.

I got my chance for a cameo appearance during a conference room scene. In the scene, shot at a nearby Naval office building, there was a confrontation between Slayton, Schirra and a bunch of simulated NASA managers. I played the role of a nameless engineer seated next to Mark Harmon. The place was so packed with the actors and film crew that there was no room for the director. Lili Zanuck proved to be a real trooper and laid herself down under the conference table and followed the scene with a television monitor. My big moment came when Mark, playing Wally Schirra, looked over at me and I smugly nodded my head.

Richard Toyon and his production crew had some big jobs to tackle. They had to develop a xenon lighting system which would accurately portray the Sun as seen from the Moon. It turned out to be the brightest artificial lighting source ever used in movie history. Stuntmen and actors were rigged to large helium balloons to simulate 1/6 lunar gravity. All the hardware and space suits were build with extreme care. They even created an inflatable bladder system inside the suits to simulate pressurization. Over 3,500 tons of soil and 2,000 tons of crushed granite were gathered and laid out to simulate the lunar surface. Ultimately. From the Earth to the Moon cost an astronomical $68 million. It was the most expensive and elaborate mini-series ever produced for television. The final result was fantastic and I was extremely happy with the portrayal. The public was apparently pleased as well. It received seventeen Emmy award nominations Early in 1999, I was contacted by a man named Curt Newport. He was looking for information on Gus Grissom’s old Mercury capsule, Liberty Bell 7. Newport was a big-time salvage expert who had worked on many famous wrecks over the years including even STS-51L and the Titanic. He had researched the sinking of Grissom’s spacecraft for fourteen years he told me. In 1992 and ‘93, he had made some brief attempts to locate the spacecraft but without success. When it filled with water and sunk in 1961, the little Mercury ship sank to the bottom of the Atlantic, over 15,000 feet deep. Newport said he had some major funding to mount a serious expedition and hoped I might be able to help him with some questions. I replied that I would be glad to help out in any way I could.

When I met with Curt, we were joined by former NASA engineer Sam Beddingfield. Sam and I had worked together for many years and both had a lot of hands-on experience with Mercury. Newport had two primary concerns. His first involved the methods that he might use to clamp onto the spacecraft for lifting it from the ocean floor. Secondly, he was concerned about a bomb.

In all the Mercury capsules, a SOFAR bomb was installed in the upper canister area, above the cockpit and below the parachute container. The bomb was a small cylinder that was supposed to detonate in the case of a capsule sinking. Back in the 60’s we had jokingly referred to it as the “so-long” bomb. If it exploded, it meant that the capsule had sunk to an unrecoverable depth. When Grissom’s capsule went down, every indication was that the bomb had not detonated. That obviously added an unusual twist to any recovery effort.

The expedition plan called for first locating the spacecraft with a submersible sonar platform. After that, a robotic camera would go down for a look so that the crew on the ship could evaluate how to proceed. At that point, I, along with Jim Lewis, the helicopter pilot who had unsuccessfully tried to haul in Liberty Bell 7 back in 1961, would be taken by chopper out to the ship to assist with the retrieval.

Curt had tied down the most likely location for the capsule to a rectangular area off the coast of the Bahamas. That rectangle was roughly three miles wide and eight miles long. Even with the most sophisticated equipment in the world, they would still have to sift through twenty-four square miles of ocean floor using a remotely operated vehicle that was four miles away from the ship. It was the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack.

As Newport and his team prepared for the April castoff from Port Canaveral, Gus’ widow, Betty Grissom, began raising hell with the press. She said she hoped they would not find it and was “disgusted” that no one had consulted her about the recovery. NASA and the Smithsonian Institution had both carefully studied Newport’s plan and given it their approval. Personally, 1 don’t know what business it was of hers. The Discovery Channel was funding the expedition and, if it was successful, The Kansas Cosmosphere would do the restoration and oversee its exhibition. And therein lay Betty’s problem. Apparently she believed that the Cosmosphere, at some point, had tried to get Grissom’s GT-3 spacecraft moved from her hometown of Mitchell, Indiana to the Cosmosphere’s elaborate museum in Kansas. She also believed that the Cosmosphere had done a botched up job on the restoration of the Apollo 14 command module. All the newspapers were printing the story. Now she did not want the Cosmosphere to have anything to do with Liberty Bell 7.

The truth, however, was that the Kansas Cosmosphere already had a Gemini spacecraft on display and had never made any attempts to acquire GT-3. And regarding Apollo 14, the Cosmosphere never even touched it. It was restored by Rockwell, itself, and was in fact a beautiful job. Max Ary, the Cosmosphere’s president was at a loss to explain her antagonism.

Notwithstanding her objections, the expedition departed on April 19, 1999 after a balked attempt on the 18th. It took a full day for the ship, the Needham Tide, to reach the recovery area some three hundred miles from the Cape. Newport wasted no time and got to work with the sonar scanning. Their hopes were based on the abilities of a remotely controlled side-scanning sonar platform. The yellow contraption would be towed behind the ship in a series of straight lines, each eight miles long. The crew called it “mowing the lawn.” The sonar could image the floor 500 yards to either side, but left a narrow blind swath underneath. No one could forget the possibility that they might go right over the top of the capsule and miss it. And since each pass took eight hours to complete, followed by six hours to tow it around 180 degrees for another pass, missing it would be a major setback.

It did not take long for difficulties to develop. The sonar failed when water flooded critical components and had to be hauled back in. Fortunately, they had complete shop and electronics facilities on board so they were able to diagnose and repair the piece of expensive equipment without returning to port. But the repairs took three days. Once they finally had it back in the water to continue the scanning, they were faced with a more complex geography than had been expected. After dragging the sonar through twenty-four square miles, eighty-eight possible targets had been identified. That was simply too many to visually examine so Newport and his team used a mixture of science and intuition to prioritize the targets. After further study, they culled the group to sixteen. These were the most likely candidates and cameras on the ROV (remotely operated vehicle) would examine each one if necessary. By this time, they had been at sea for two weeks.

Using their prioritization, the first target was chosen for investigation. Known to them as “target 71,” it had shown good sonar reflectivity and seemed as promising as any. The ROV Magellan was lowered over the stem of the ship for its four and a half hour descent. Now a new problem appeared. When it got to its scanning depth, about twenty-five feet above the ocean’s floor, the sonar failed. That left them with just Magellan’s camera which could see ahead less than thirty feet. With no other choice, Newport and his team turned their attention to the television monitors. The landscape was as alien as the surface of the moon. The barren floor bore no resemblance to anything touched by the light of the sun. As Magellan glided through the frigid water its headlight faded out into blackness. But soon they started to strain their vision. The TV screens seemed to register something in the distance. It was hard to tell. Gradually, they began to see a faint shape at their visual horizon. As the ROV inched closer, it took on the shape of a small pyramid.

“Oh my God, this is it!” Curt exclaimed.

What were the odds? After all the problems and uncertainties, the first target they looked at was Gus Grissom’s Liberty Bell 7. They had found it and the team was elated.

“Congratulations,” Newport told them. “We just rewrote space history.”

The spacecraft was in remarkably good shape. The black shingles on the sides looked almost brand new and the words “United States” were clearly visible in bold white letters. The little hatch covering the periscope was open. At the top of the capsule, a large amount of corrosion blossomed out. At the bottom, the decayed remnants of the heatshield seemed to form a bed of amorphous goo. As Magellan was steered around to the spacecraft’s opposite side, the words “Liberty Bell 7” came into view. Even the white “crack” that Grissom had had painted on the side was there. It was an exciting and marvelous sight.

While they continued to examine the capsule, weather conditions on the surface were deteriorating. Reluctantly, the decision was made to haul Magellan back in and the crew got busy with the task. Unfortunately, they had waited too long. As the ROV made its slow ascent, the waves continued to build. Soon the Needham Tide was riding eight foot swells. In an instant, the steel cable became entangled on the winch. Now it was an emergency. Magellan dangled in the water while technicians worked feverishly on the repairs. But after two hours of work, the cable could hold no longer. With a snap, the million dollar ROV plunged to the ocean floor.

It took over two months to prepare for the follow-up cruise. One of the holdups was the ROV. With Magellan itself on the bottom and in need of rescue, a new submersible was built. In record breaking time it was ready. A new larger ship was contracted, the Ocean Project. Three new members joined Curt’s crew from Oceaneering International: myself, Jim Lewis, and Max Ary. We set out from port on July 6.

Our arrival at the site was heralded by blue skies and beautiful weather. Everyone was in high spirits and the expectation was that we would locate Liberty Bell 7 without delay. The first job, however, was to locate and retrieve Magellan. With the ship at the proper GPS coordinates, the ROV, Ocean Discovery, took to the depths in search of its lost predecessor. Newport and his team carefully piloted the submersible from the yellow and white control van on the ship’s deck.

Ocean Discovery arrived at its calculated destination, but no Magellan. Alright, we figured, we’ll just have to widen the pattern a little. Round and round the “little” ROV went. Time ticked by and still no sighting. It started to become clear that locating our quarry might not be the snap everyone had hoped for.

Hours stretched into days. Finally, after three days of searching, Newport made the decision to move on and concentrate on the spacecraft. He would have to come back later for Magellan.

We only had to relocate about a mile and a half to get to the GPS coordinates for Liberty Bell 7. Once again, team members piloted the ROV while watching on their TV monitors. But the spot that should have been the spacecraft’s resting place looked different and there was no spacecraft to be seen. The problem was that GPS coordinates are extremely accurate. We could put the ship at the exact spot we wanted on the ocean’s surface. But underwater, there is no GPS reception. With the ROV at the end of four miles of umbilical cable, it was very hard to determine its exact location. Once again, hours stretched into a day, and then that stretched into the next. Growing frustration was visible on Curt’s face. He always kept a low tone, but it was easy to see his concern.

Well into the third day, some of the underwater landscape was recognized from the previous trip and was matched to photographs that had been taken. Carefully they steered the ROV until, finally, a small dark tower loomed up out of the blackness. There it was. Grissom’s spacecraft. If you had told me a year earlier that 1 would someday see it again I would have thought you were crazy. But now I was looking at it and memories flooded back through my mind.

In a way it was odd looking. Growths of corrosion topped it like a crown and the disintegrated heatshield looked like some strange coral formation below it. But the black walls of the spacecraft looked almost as they did the day John Glenn and I had shoved Gus inside. It was remarkable. Jim Lewis was having the same sort of memories as he stared at the relic. He was excited to see the cable he had hooked up from his helicopter, still attached to the apex of the capsule.

As the camera craft swung around to the other side, we could see into the cockpit. Pieces of corroded metal had caved in from the instrument panel area and the bottom was filled with a thick layer of muck. Wires and switches were clearly visible, hanging in the few open spaces. The straps that had held Gus in his couch were right there and appeared to be in fantastic condition. Someone spotted Grissom’s flashlight among the debris.

We spent a good bit of time examining the spacecraft through the camera’s lens. Sitting there upright on the ocean’s floor, it seemed to imply a story that had nothing to do with spaceflight. Time must have passed awfully slowly down there under three miles of water. Thirty-eight years in that dark, barren place. It almost seemed a bit spooky. We were anxious to see it safely on the surface again.

The next step in the recovery involved the attachment of three clamps onto a ring at the top of the spacecraft. Curt had studied the spacecraft design in great detail. The clamps he had specially designed for the job were hybrid little gizmos. Two steel blocks were connected with a screw mechanism, much like the two sides of a bench vice, only upside down. Welded above them was a steel D-ring where the recovery cable would be hooked. When the blocks were screwed down tight, clamped onto the top rim of Liberty Bell 7, there was no way they were going to let go - unless the spacecraft metal they were attached to gave way. And that was a distinct possibility.

Getting the three clamps attached was a tedious job. The remote manipulator arms of Ocean Discovery were operated from joysticks in the control van. The smell of sweat and cigarette smoke filled the cramped room. Tiny movements were monitored on the TVs by the two operators as they tried to line up the pieces. As each clamp was placed in position and held by one arm, the other arm with a rotating wrist joint would slowly turn the screw. It was a delicate and very sluggish procedure. Someone mentioned that it was like doing surgery by remote control on a patient that was three miles away.

It actually took a few days to complete the hookup and get everything prepared. Once that was done, it was time to extract the ROV from the water, another timely process. The crew did not want anything around the spacecraft that might become entangled. After another half day, it was finally time to draw the kevlar cable tight on the three point harness and pull the spacecraft toward the surface. In very calm seas in the early evening, the winch started its slow turning. There was great concern that something might go wrong. Everyone on board wore an almost solemn expression.

For hours the wheels turned, pulling up the miles of steel-reinforced cable. At one point it went limp and everyone stifled a gasp. But moments later we were relieved to discover that it was only a swell in the sea that had briefly caused some slack in the line. The closer Liberty Bell 7 drew to the surface, the thicker the tension among us became.

As 2:00 a.m. approached, the spacecraft neared the surface. Curt had donned his hard hat and life vest in preparation for the final grappling. The sea remained calm and, overhead, the moon shone brightly in a half crescent.

Alright. Here it comes.

A small red buoy attached to the harness appeared first, bobbing around as the cable pulled it through the surface tension. Moonlight sparkled on the water as it broke free into the air. The three taught lines seemed to spread as they were drawn upward through the black water. And then we saw it. The corroded top of the Mercury spacecraft broke the surface. For the first time in thirty-eight years, the little McDonnell-built ship felt fresh air. Nearly thirty-eight years to the day, in fact. The date was July 20, 1999. Grissom’s flight had taken place on July 21, 1961. But there was also another anniversary of note. On this day in 1969, Buz/ Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first two humans to land on the moon. The same moon that now shone on Liberty Bell 7.

The crew took their time in withdrawing the spacecraft completely out of the sea. The longer it hung in the air without the support of the surrounding water, the greater the chances that something might give way. When it was pulled close in to the ship’s gunwales, Curt was the first person to reach out and touch it. In short order, it was sitting on the deck in the bottom half of an old steel boiler that sported the Discovery Channel logo.

The next issue was the SOFAR bomb. A small team of demolitions experts from UXB International took over and got the deck cleared of observers. It was funny. These guys had been easy-going and relaxed all through the expedition. But now they were strictly business and made it quite clear that they were in charge. The unexploded bomb was quickly located and a close-up of it was videotaped so that its label and serial numbers could be documented. Then it was over the side with it, hopefully never to see the light of day again.

We were invited back to inspect the prize and for the first time in almost three weeks, everyone was happy and joking. My own first comment was not all that historic.

“Let me just go ahead and touch it after thirty-eight years,” I mumbled.

But I was very excited. Here we were again, face to face. Me and spacecraft number 11 from the McDonnell Aircraft plant in St. Louis, Missouri. It was like seeing an old friend again. The only thing that could have made it better would have been to hear Gus’ voice over my shoulder saying, “She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” Max Ary noticed something shining in the mud that filled the bottom of the capsule and reached in to extract two Mercury head dimes. We had no idea that that would lead to more controversy. The next day, one of Grissom’s sons reported to the press that he did not think the dimes could have made the flight in 1961. All of Gus’ flown dimes were accounted for, he reasoned. But what he did not consider was that technicians on the launch crew had secreted away little souvenirs aboard the capsule. These were surely some of those.

By dawn, Liberty Bell 7 was lashed down inside the boiler-turned-holding-tank and we began the day long trip back home. Upon arrival in Port Canaveral, a large crowd was on hand to greet us. Lots of reporters, well-wishers, and television cameras. After the spacecraft was loaded onto a flatbed truck, a quiet gentleman with a curiously familiar smile walked up to take a look. After looking at it for a few moments, he leaned over the edge of the boiler and touched the black metal.

“I think Gus would be really pleased to see Liberty Bell back home, “ he said.

I had to agree with him. It was Lowell Grissom, Gus’ younger brother.

So now, dear reader, my story to you has reached its end. I have had a wonderful career and a marvelous life. Although my service to the space program is completed, our country’s presence in space is really only at its beginning. I am excited by the prospects that await us and have some final thoughts.

I have seen a substantial decline in the public support for space programs over the years. This might be the result of the improved relations with the Russians, or maybe just because spaceflight no longer seems exciting. Certainly the public has questioned the wisdom of spending such vast sums of money for research in space while so many problems still remain on Earth.

Today, after over 100 Space Shuttle flights, we have relatively few cost-effective commercial applications of space technology demonstrating clear and obvious benefits to the general public. The average person on the street is not able to envision or appreciate the future benefits resulting from scientific basic research. He wants to know how he and his neighbors can benefit now. I believe NASA should identify and implement projects that meet three criteria. They should:

(1) be projects that are clearly beneficial to the general public. Short term results are key to garnering public support.

(2) be projects that will expand development of our existing technological base. This will strengthen our economy and improve our competitive position in the international marketplace.

(3) be projects that use private investments whenever possible to offset cost to the taxpayers.

Such a project might be the development of a solar power station. This would clearly demonstrate the feasibility of generating power (or at least energy collection) in space for consumption on Earth. This solar-powered satellite would be placed in a geosynchronous orbit and would deliver power to tens of thousands of homes without burning an ounce of fossil fuel or polluting the atmosphere. Power transmission could be handled by low-frequency microwaves. This would present no more of an environmental danger than sunshine.

While the idea of building such a huge structure in space - probably the size of several football fields - may sound far-fetched, there are no fundamental technical reasons why it could not be done. And when the next generation of space vehicle emerges with the expected reduction in the expense of placing payloads into orbit, the cost/benefit ratio will become even more attractive.

To fund such a large and long-range program, the capital must come from somewhere other than Washington. Earlier in the last century, the federal government and private entrepreneurs successfully worked together to make the long-term funding commitment necessary for the construction of massive hydroelectric power dams in the western United States. The same funding technique could be used to finance the development of a demonstration project of a solar power generating satellite.

I think the average taxpayer would see the development of a pollution-free power source as a stepping stone to our future. Indeed, other countries would recognize the potential impact to their own futures. Students would see the opportunity for exploration and a reason to expand their education - future employment. Professional people and corporations would see the business potential. After all, these are the entities that do look beyond today and into the future. And the United States would reap the prestige and the chance to dominate a new technological market. No longer is the excitement of Buck Rogers an enticement to explore space. Now we have to show the public how it will improve their lives and the lives of their grandchildren.

There are many other projects that might capture the imagination and the support of the majority of the tax paying public. All it takes is people with vision, a strong, committed leadership, and adequate resources. Space exploration and utilization has always been in our future. Let’s go for it now.