ROCKET MEN : ALAN SHEPARD

One of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, the former Navy test pilot became the first man into space on May 5, 1961. In December, 1963, he was grounded because of an inner-ear disorder and became chief of the astronaut office. In May, 1969, his disorder was surgically treated and he was returned to flight status. In July, 1971, he returned to space on Apollo 14. Shepard, now 70, became the first man to play golf on the lunar surface.

Were you scared on your first flight into space?

I don’t think scared is the right word. Nervous . Obviously, you practiced for all kinds of things to go wrong. You have trained to respond to emergency situations. Still, you are a bit nervous when you are sitting on top of the rocket. . . . I (was) nervous that I might make a mistake, same thing as a youngster taking an exam. He’s a little bit nervous, but as soon as the kid starts to answer the first question of the exam, he stops being nervous. As the rocket fires, you stop being nervous and pay attention to the rocket. You don’t worry about nervousness.

Why did you hit golf balls on the moon on the Apollo 14 flight?

It was not spontaneous. Several months before the flight, I thought about it. On the moon, golf balls are going to go six times as far and it’s not going to slice or hook because there’s no atmosphere. So I started to practice. We had a collapsible handle which had a scoop on the end of it to scoop up dust samples. The handle would be left up there, so I took the end of a No. 6 iron because that was about the length of the handle. I had it so it would snap on the end in place of the scoop. I took some pictures and then told the boss what I wanted to do. First, he said “No.” And then I said, “Wait a minute, boss.” I showed him the pictures. I said I paid for the club head and paid for the golf balls, so no expense to the taxpayers. I said, “Suppose I wait to the very end of the lunar mission, just before we were supposed to leave. If anything has gone wrong or we have equipment failures or had screwed up, anything like that, I won’t hit the golf balls. But if everything has gone completely right, then the last thing I’ll do before I go is whack these two golf balls. I won’t even get them. I will leave them up there.” And he said, “That’s a deal.”

How do you regard the state of NASA today?

We would like to see a full level of funding that would keep the space station on schedule. I think we all understand that most of the people don’t really know what’s going on at NASA. But it’s a very mature sense of exploration in looking into various fields of science. All the experiments they are doing up on the shuttle--I would say they are going to help people make their life better. The average citizen doesn’t know this. That’s why they’re having difficulty with the Congress because they don’t realize that either. They don’t understand basic research. When we start talking about the experiments that the space station will be doing--looking back at the planet, looking at the ozone levels, looking at pollution, and doing it on a worldwide basis--then they are going to say those NASA guys are doing something for us on this planet after all.

Would you go into space again?

Oh yeah, absolutely. But I wouldn’t want to go through the thousands of hours of training again. I am too old for that (laughs).

WALTER (WALLY) SCHIRRA

Another of the original Mercury Seven astronauts, the former lieutenant commander and Korean War veteran made his first foray into space on Oct. 3, 1962, in the Sigma Seven. On the longest American mission to that date--nine hours--Schirra performed a series of scientific and engineering experiments. On Dec. 15, 1965, Schirra and Tom Stafford took off in the Gemini 6, which achieved a historic rendezvous with Gemini 7, steering within 6 to 8 inches of it. And on Oct. 11, 1968, Schirra, Walt Cunningham and Don Eisle lifted off in the Apollo 7. Schirra developed a severe head cold and the crew complained about the workload, including last-minute changes in their flight program. Schirra, 71, is known as the prankster among the Mercury 7 astronauts.

What were your feelings about the movie “The Right Stuff”?

Well, my appellation for that was “Animal House in Space,” which I said often enough that Tom Wolfe (who wrote the best-selling book) called me and said, “My first bid for movie rights was from (John) Belushi and (Dan) Aykroyd, which would have made it a much better comedy.” I met Lance Henrikson (who played Schirra in the movie) at the premiere. That is the only time I have seen it really. He said, “Did I get you wrong!” I kept saying I had more time in my Actifed commercial than I did in that movie, and it was a 30-second commercial.

How did you feel when you weren’t given the first manned flight into space?

It was a real thud. All of us feel that you think you are the best, and suddenly you are not the very best. But then the sequence worked out to where I had a better flight. I kept teasing Shepard after that.

What kind of emotions did you feel as you waited to blast off?

You are setting me up for my favorite line, though all of us claim it. As you are lying there just before liftoff you think, all of these hundreds and thousands of parts were put together by the lowest bidder. It is one of our favorite lines.

What was your first flight like?

That was a busy flight. I tried to conserve the altitude-control fuel which had been exhausted on John Glenn and Scott Carpenter’s flights. I did so well at it, I think I had 80% of the fuel left and that permitted Gordon Cooper to go up for 24 hours.

Describe your White House visit after your Sigma Seven flight?

My wife, son and daughter and I were sitting there in the Oval Office; it was the Cuban Missile Crisis that very day. (President) Kennedy was so cool, and he asked my daughter how old she was and she held up five fingers. He said, “Do you want to see Macaroni?” That was Caroline’s pet horse out in the Rose Garden. It was amazing how cool the man was with this crisis going on around him. That has shown up in a number of history books.

What was the Gemini 7 flight like?

That was my favorite mission ... the first time a rendezvous was ever done and it was done so well. It was done to perfection. Up until then we came in second to the Soviets. They had the first space walk. They had the first multiple crew. They had the first man in orbit. The first woman in orbit. So suddenly, about all we could do was compete for duration, which we started doing, and even then we didn’t win. But they had never done a rendezvous and they didn’t do that kind of rendezvous for another 10 years.

What about your head cold on Apollo 7?

That was a bad deal. There were no symptoms prior to the flight, which was kind of interesting. Then it developed within about 24 hours, maybe 48 hours, as a screaming head cold. We had Actifed (in the capsule), which many years later my daughter, now older, called the 10-day cold capsule. The producer of Actifed said, “Would you do the spokesman role since you used Actifed?” and I said, “Sure.” I had a lot of fun with it.