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"Hello, Africa." For most of the time that Cooper whirled through space, sliding from night into day and day into night every 45 minutes, his capsule behaved equally well. It afforded him time for such celestial ceremonies as receiving a "good luck and Godspeed" message from Air Force Secretary Eugene Zuckert and Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay. Cooper sent a space greeting to representatives of some 30 African nations meeting in Addis Ababa: "Hello, Africa. This is Astronaut Gordon Cooper speaking from Faith 7. I am right now over 100 miles above Africa just passing Zanzibar. Just a few minutes ago, I passed Addis Ababa. I want to wish you success to your leaders there. Good luck to all of you in Africa." Cooper flew seven times over Red China, the first U.S. astronaut to pass above that hostile land. He saw smoke curling from chimneys in Tibet, the glow of lights in Perth, Australia, even spotted his present home town of Clear Lake, Texas, near Houston's new Manned Spacecraft Center. In all. Cooper sped over more than 100 nations. To recover him promptly if he came down on foreign soil, the U.S. State Department got advance promises from some 80 embassies and 17 consulates that they would permit U.S. rescue teams to seek him. Had he landed in Red China, the U.S. was prepared to demand, through an Iron Curtain intermediary, probably Poland, his immediate release.
Well into Cooper's second day of flight, Mercury Control Announcer John ("Shorty") Powers proudly said: "The spacecraft is still performing in almost unbelievable fashion." And then came the crisis. On his 19th orbit, while out of radio contact over the Western Pacific, Cooper reached forward, threw a switch to dim his panel lights—and saw a small indicator glow green.
That light was labeled ".05G"—indicating that the gravity pull on Cooper's capsule had built up to five one-hundredths of ground-level gravity force. The light should have blinked on only after Cooper's three retrorockets had been fired, nudging the capsule out of orbit. If working properly, the light would also mean that the autopilot system was set to start the capsule rolling slowly. The roll, imparting a corkscrew motion as the capsule bores into the atmosphere, would produce a smoother reentry.
Had Cooper somehow slipped out of orbit? No. The Hawaii tracking station assured him that his position was proper. Was the light then merely faulty? Or had the autopilot re-entry circuit been triggered out of its normal sequence? On his 20th orbit, he was advised to switch to autopilot—and the capsule began to roll. He then knew that once he reached the .05G level on reentry, his autopilot would take over.
But for proper flight, there were other functions for the autopilot to perform before reaching this re-entry positioning. And since each stage was automatically linked in sequence with the others, he now knew that the earlier functions had been skipped, would not be performed by the autopilot. These included the precise positioning of his capsule for the firing of his retrorockets, the triggering of those rockets and the jettisoning of his retro-package. These functions would have to be controlled by hand.