hired NASA personnel, according to Roberts. However, NASA needed their expertise well past that point, bringing a sudden change in assignments. The St. Louis engineers were supposed to spend nine months in Florida. Many ended up staying several years, raising their families there as the space program evolved. “I had a Mercury little girl and a Gemini little boy,” Roberts said. Project Gemini followed Mercury. McDonnell also built the two-person Gemini space capsule. Among their many Cape Canaveral duties, Beckel dealt with communications systems, Tucker oversaw cabling from 58 BOEING FRONTIERS the blockhouse to the launchpad, and Schepp and Roberts were involved with autopilot needs. Meanwhile, Robb and Purdy flew back and forth from St. Louis, Robb working on structural aspects of the spacecraft and Purdy on electrical circuits and wiring. “It was a very exciting time and I never had a problem getting up and going to work,” Purdy said. The engineers and astronauts sometimes entered into serious debate over how things should be handled inside the spacecraft. Dissatisfied with a handrail, Grissom made sure that Robb put on an astronaut pressure suit in order to see his point, Robb recalled. Astronaut John Glenn strongly urged Schepp and his colleagues to make a significant change to the autopilot system. The Mercury capsule had been designed to only fly backward, putting the heat shield first for safety reasons. Glenn and the other astronauts wanted the ability to travel forward in order to see where they were headed. After much discussion, Schepp said, the engineering team installed a new switch to accommodate their request. During his Mercury flight that made three orbits around Earth, Glenn
Frontiers December 2015 - January 2016 Issue
To see the actual publication please follow the link above