Corpus Christi Caller-Times from Corpus Christi, Texas • 4

CHRISH CALLER Sat Jan 27 1D62 II Warship Is Ready For Astronaut Recovery 40 000-Ton Randolph ANTENNA HOUSING For gravid command poracHwto and tnlta-tad Horizon scanners sf fan fcv jf I RETROGRADE PACKAGE Rockets lot return from orbil w) tor i paroling booster otter teaching orbital velocity Protection from eittemo temporotures during re-entry iCWos- Ivey Watchdog Vessel ABOARD CARRIER RANDOLPH AT SEA This battle-scarred warship maneuvered into position Friday at the bullseye spot for first mannee orbital flight ready to pick up a hitchhiker expected to drop in from outer space The 40000-ton Randolph which won her space-age kpura by engineering the recovery of Astronaut Gus Grissom last summer is potentially the key strip in sn armada of sea and air search craft deployed around the world on the eve if Co! John II Glenn's fight Sue cruising bark and forth like a nrrvous watchdog about $00 miles southeast of Glenn's launching pad at Cape Canaveral Officers and space agency technicians have made final checks of their strategy for snaring the prize Few plans of battle at sea have more intricacies than does the plan designed to bring sandy-haired Glenn home safely to tlie flight deck of the Randolph after his space capsule splashes to the sea That flight deck long as three football fields once was bloodied by a Japanese kamikaze attack in which killed 26 men and wounded 130 others The strategy plan is one that will tap the skills of many specialists ranging from Marine helicopter fliers to derrick operators from navigators to tie-down men from frogmen to physicians Air of Confidence Bui an atmosphere of confident expectancy pervades the great ship manned by more than 2300 officers and men It has spread all down the line from Rear Adm Earl Eastwold of Leroy Minn to men like Airman apprentice Michael Batson Baltimore Md who has been scraping paint oft the quarterdeck The Randolph's skipper Cleveland-horn Capt Max A Borns Jr put it this way: iwt tlie information through a network of about 30 miles jwire situated at the station w1 GUAYMAS Mexico Lh The tracking station in this West Coast town is tlie watchdog which may hring Astronaut John Glenn back to earth after his first orbit around the world if all is not firing well One of 18 such stations circling the globe it is perhaps the most important because it has tlie job of grounding Glenn promptly ir instruments show all is not perfect in his capsule If scientists push tlie vital button here Glenn would land in the appointed Caribbean where ships are waiting to rescue him Glenn himself or otlier tracking stations could bring the capsule down in an emergency: hut he would not land in the prepared aira and it could create difficulties The rapsule will pass directly over the Guaymas station toward the end of each orbit The station will receive information on the heartbeat of the astronaut his temperature and respiration and data on tlie capsule Electronic brains and other equipment immediately will di- ASTRONAUT'S SON AT SCHOOL David tried to concentrate THIS IS HOW JOHN GLENN WILL HIDE LE IN J-ORBIT ATTEMPT Mercury capsule with escape lower will sit on nose of an Atlas lxmsler rocket Rocket Capsule Have Been Tested Toward Perfection craft sprang a leak when it hit the water but recovery ships retrieved this capsule long before it had a chance to sink The malfunction of tlie Redstone resulted in another stint with a dummy capsule before the space agency was ready to send Astronaut Alan Shepard Jr aloft on a Redslone-boosted sub-orbital flight on May 3 19C1 Shepard's flight was perfect reaching an altitude of 116 miles and landing 303 miles away Astronaut Virgil I Grissom took almost an dcntical ride on July 21 1961 but an escape hatch It's Tree Pruning Time! the system to insist Glenn's re- ofcovery Tlie officials fvl Atlas Were ready Wove trained in lightning decisions may ie iii'ide 1 pocket tlie capsule the possible contingencies Fromj The man who will push the but-jing network and the all-inirtant in our fingprs are ton if necessary is Thomas escape system have attained suf- on in our capsule carried no escape rocket and was destroyed Tlie Rcdstone-boost piiase of the Mercury program began Nov 21 1960 when an effort was made to hurl an instrumented capsule 113 miles high and 300 miles down on the same sulmrhital course planned for the first American astronaut Tlie Redstone engine ignited bill shut down before tlie roeket left the pad This shot was repeated successfully a month later Then Ham the chimpanzee was launched on Jan 31 1961 over the same intended path But the Redstone engine shut off in flight less than a second too soon The escape system detected trouble and fired just as the Redstone released the capsule on a ballistic trajectory The added boost from the escape rocket propplled Ham 113 miles high and 237 miles down range from Gipe Canaveral The Moore of Washington Hie Mexican tracking station for Project Mercury is a few miles outside this fishing resort It covers about five acres of land ficient reliability so that a man can be committed to an or-hital flight Rut they know from experi- cnee on previous rU! tiCted launchings that the unpredicta- ble the sudden the surprising are located in one small GLENN'S DAUGHTER AT SCHOOL LUNCHROOM life normal (0 Wlrtphlii) CONFIDENCE AND CHILI Family Awaits Big Day Now's the time to prune shape dean and top your Tallow Ash Cottonwoods end others completely equipped end experienced to handle ony job In the Coastal Bend Area Coll CURRIE'S TU2-5441 wjwWMWM (W'fWWWv'fJKiM! WHV BIGGEST SAVINGS EVER CAPE CANAVERAL (if die time nears for astronaut John Glenn Jr to ride a rocket toward a triple orbit about the earth Project Mercury officials are confident the mission will succeed Even if something does go wrong tliey feel enough safety measures liave been built into can happen It is these unforesee happenings which have enabled experts to work bugs out of the system to the satisfaction In 20 previous launchings of the capsule or' models of the these aip wmP of tlir hi whiril havP CinsT s'vr" or hs 1fe whpn Ws ran capsule carrying Ham thr chimpanzee overshot its mark then sprang a leak and control prob-'ems with tlie spacecraft forced termination of thp rhimp Enos' orbital flight after two instead of the intended three orbits escape tower blasted high wer (tope Canaveral leaving rocket and eaosule sitting on the launching pad rocket fa ilures Slowed the program On each firing electronic fingers reached out to the hundreds of thousands of parts in the booster-capsule combination relaying performance information On each failure this data pinpointed the trouble Earh time It was corrected before the next launehing and no problem has repeated Several launchings were made from Wallops Island Va using a small solid-fuel rocket called Thor These evaluated the es-rnpe system under different conditions Two monkeys Sam and Miss Sam rode two of the rockets in the grneraliy-suceessful series On July 29 1960 an Atlas booster exploded shortly after it blast ed off from Cape Canaveral in an attempt to Subject the capsule to maximum reentry condi jtions on a ballistic flight The ARLINGTON Va (API Accord Ohio home town for both small brunette with sparkling 1 Glenn and his wife The Castors brown eyes Mrs John II here last week Jr was and Neighbors plan to drop in too very much so" Friday on the eve! In fact Marine Lt Col and Mrs of her husband's journey into Thomas Miller who live next spare jdooo plan to go over to- the No writing Glenns and leave their own home This was the way a close friend opcn tor tlie reporters photo? described the of the Marine iraphers and TV personnel already Corps lieutenant colonel who Sat- beginning to swarm around the urday may become America's neighborhood first man to orbit the earth The neighbors are that Preparations were under way neighborly and friendly trying to at th Glenns' attractive contem- helo the well-liked Glenn family porary brick bilevel home in Arlington a suburb of Washington (AC WirotMl) on bis capsule blew out shortly after he landed and he had to swim to safety as the vehicle sank Is three miles of Atlantic ocean water The (rouble with tlie hatch was traced and corrected and no morn suborbital shots were considered necessary Attention tlirn turn'd to the (lie project which hnd been conducted concurrently with the Redstone section On Feb 21 1961 an Allas successfully boosted a capsule on the suborbital reentry test which toiled the previous July CHAPARRAL Mrs Glenn was going to make bor ho's the ife of Lt Col Lcs-a big bowl of a dish of hers lie Brown went over to with topnotch rating among the the Glenn home Friday evening family and for Informal to pet a rwst and potatoes in eating Saturday There'll be no Mrs Glenn's oven cooking ing It is supervised by a joint Mexican American commission Rirardo Mongos Lopez is president Engineer Suarez Diaz tech-nical director of telecommunications for the Mexican Ministry of Ccunmunications and a member of the joint commission is to be present during the flight Mexico's part in the or bit has aroused widespread inter- rat in this south-of-the-border country A radio network at heavy cost is arranging full coverage and will broadcast directly from G'laymas 3Iemiry Cost Her Capita Is Just $216 CAPE CANAVERAL For each American man woman and child the admission ticket to John II Glenn space voyage conies lo $216 And it's all lax But it's kind of a bargain For it includes the past hope of Alan Shepard and Virgil Grissom and Enos and Ham and all that went before It covers all the costs of Project to put man into until the end of the fiscal ear 1962 including attempted orbital flights by three astronauts Mercury is costing about $100 millions in taxpayers' money the National Aeronautics and Space Administration estimates With US population now of 185 million $216 covers it At the time of Shepard's flight the $100 millions figured to something under $225 per capita But the population has grown since then and keeps growing i A i dllSlc CLASS now crossed" The skipper has ordered that all eight of the Randolph's boilers be fired up and ready at shot time instead of the usual four employed even in anti-sub-marine maneuvers so the warship can leap forward when the word flashes that Glenn is headed for impact The atrategy plan for recovery is based on the expectation that if all goes well with Glenn's flight and he makes the planned three orbits his capsule will parachute to the sea somewhere in the elliptical area about 200 miles long and some 43 miles wide at its widest point Ideally it would fall close to the center of that area where the Randolph herself Is patrolling Recovery Plan The master recovery plan for the Glenn shot revolves around these three main possibilities: 1 A normal end-of-orhit landing followed quickly by pickup of the astronaut by a Randolph helicopter and a later pickup by a destroyer of the Mercury capsule The latter'! floating ability would be unhanced by a "flotation roliar" deftly placed by two frogmen If the astronaut is okay when brought aboard the Randolph he'll be taken to the captain's plush in-port cabin for a physical exam and "drbrieting" If he's injured he'll be rushed to llw sick bay where nearly a ton of medical and surgical equipment was brought aboard especially for Glenn 2 An end-of-orbit landing but with a destroyer making the recovery of both the capsule and the astronaut If the astronaut is okay he'll be transferred later to the Randolph either by helicopter or by a "highline" stretched between tlie destroyer and the carrier If he's badly injured both he and the capsule will be tnkrn to Grand Turk Island Bahamas aboard the destroyer An "astronaut emergency" with the spaceman being injured and unable to get out of the capsule at sea A doctor would be lowered from a Randolph helicopter to the flotation collar to inspect the astronaut SAVINGS TOO The CA policy can give you more than life insurance It can give you one of the finest savings plans Let me tell you about our Guaranteed Estate Builder The CA Man Mrs Miller told a reporter that she and another neigh would'nt be a worry Fairly Normal Mrs Glenn went out on errands Friday It's been a fairly normal life lately running a household and David off to 10ih classes at Yorktown High School and Lyn to 9th-grade class- es at Williamsburg Junior High School across the street Thursday Mrs Glenn went with a group of wives of officers at the Quantico Vaf Marine Corps a ppcial our the on a White House Mrs Fred Korth wife of the secretary of tlie Navy was a guest too They didn't see President Kennedy but had coffee with his naval aide Capt Tazewell Shepard Several secretaries around the White House learned of Mrs Glenn's visit and told her they would see her again next week That was their way of saying they expected everyting to go well and to see Glenn and his family eallcd in to he honored by the President LESSONS glued to that set Just like a kid a friend said of Mrs Glenn Mrs Gcnn has becn over tlie telephone with her husband almost daily lately The David 16 a tail teen-ager with a crew ut and Carolyn (who prefers to be called Ljm 11 pretty and freckle-faced talked with their father too Tiiey'll he home wi'h their mother Saturday Parents Frcw-nt Joining them at the TV sets will he Mrs Glenn's parents Dr and Mrs Castor of New Con- Weather Plays Deciding Hole In Space Shot CAPE CANAVERAL -Weather tosses real touch-and-go elements into John Glenn's space voyage And weather is a main factor determining how long it lasts While thrre round trips are planned weather could limit it to only one because seas were roughing up or weather turning1 bad In the Atlantic That could still mark a successful flight and not a "failure" In any way Good or reasonable weather li needed not only at this launching apace port but In the Atlantic ocean arras where It is planned to land the astronaut Spare agency officials also would like res enable weather In other areas In case the flight must be ended suddenly and Glenn would land there At- Mr Hipp Cornet trumpst Sot 9 and 10 em baritone frombons Sat 11 am Mr Haradan French horn Sot 9 and 10 am Mr Horton drums Sat 9 and 10 am Min Simpion flute Sat 9 and 10 am Mr Smittla laxophona Sat 10 am -obat banoen by appointment Mr Duckwell voica Sat 9 am Mr Thomai clarinet Thun 4:30 pm FrL 4:30 pm CIoimi Biin Sot Jon 27 Call TU 2623 1 to IMMotCoffege Phone TII3-8581 COLONIAL AMERICAN Xift INSURANCE COMPANY 117 PIOPIIS ST CORPUS CHRISTI TIXAS school of music 301 NORTH 4 I.