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Low Residue. In his silvered pressure suit, Astronaut Shepard seemed a creature from another planet as he stepped out of a white van into the baleful Florida dawn last week. He glittered under the searchlights that surrounded the rocket pad as he made his long-legged walk to the gantry elevator that would lift him to his capsule. When he rose to the "greenhouse," an enclosed platform at the gantry's 65-ft. level, technicians helped him squeeze through a hatch in the squat, black space capsule perched atop a Redstone rocket. Then he submitted to the time-consuming business of being strapped onto a contour couch, of being hooked up to myriad tubes and wires. At 6:10 a.m. E.S.T., the hatch was closed and sealed. Blast-off was still more than three hours away.
Shepard himself had already put in even longer hours of preparation. That morning, he had been awakened at i a.m. After a shower and shave he had break fast: orange juice, eggs, tea and a y-oz. filet mignon wrapped in bacon was characteristic of the substantial but lowresidue diet that astronauts stick to when about to make a flight. After eating, Shepard got an elaborate physical examination. Everything was normal; so he moved to the suiting room to get into his space gear.
First "clothes" applied were four electrocardiograph sensors glued to his chest. Then came a respirometer (to measure breathing) taped to his neck and a rectal thermometer to measure deep body temperature. Wires from all these instruments were gathered at a metal plug that would be fitted later into the space suit. After all wires and instruments were checked, Shepard donned long underwear with built-in spongy pads to aid air circulation. Then he was helped into his 30-lb. space suit made of aluminized nylon outside and rubberized nylon inside. It was a tight squeeze. Before all Zippers, straps and metal fittings were set properly in place, Shepard was sweating profusely and breathing hard. As soon as he got his helmet on, he lay down on a specially fitted contour couch, feet held up in clamps, while his oxygen and air-pressure hoses were attached.
Shepard relaxed on the couch until 3:55. Then, escorted by two doctors, he carried his portable air-conditioning unit out of the building. Glaring TV lights met him head on, forcing him to squint his eyes. He climbed into the white transport van, lay down on another contour couch while the van drove slowly to Pad 5.
Shepard stayed on the van's couch, comfortably cooled and pressurized, until 5:14, when he went up in the gantry's elevator and entered the Mercury capsule, which was named Freedom 7 (from Shepard's seventh place on the alphabetical list of trained astronauts). Reporters, TV crews, and crowds of technicians from McDonnell Aircraft Corp. (which made the capsule) watched the silvery apparition with awe and admiration. For the last time that morning, Shepard lay down on a contour couch.