(5 of 7)
Improbable Pioneer. As the smallest (5 ft. 7 in.), most reticent of the seven original astronauts chosen in 1959, Gus Grissom seemed an improbable space pioneer. Yet he was one of the most talented and experienced of some 50 spacemen the U.S. has trained to date. Rejected by the Air Corps during World War II because he was under age, Grissom applied again when he turned 18, spent his wartime service as an aviation cadet. After his discharge, he got a mechanical-engineering degree at Purdue before rejoining the Air Force in 1950 to stay. He flew 100 combat missions in the Korean War, later became a hot-shot test pilot. He had a passion for speed, on water, land or in the air: he took up powerboat racing, teamed up with Astronaut Gordon Cooper to buy a piece of a racing car entered in last year's Indianapolis 500.
Grissom served as the little-known backup man for Shepard's historic Project Mercury flight. Five weeks later, Gus roared out of obscurity aboard Liberty Bell 7 as the second American in space. His 118-mile-high suborbital flight was a success, but the splashdown in the Atlantic ended in near-disaster when the capsule hatch inexplicably blew off, swamping Grissom inside. Gus swam from the sinking craft and was rescued by helicopter. Though he was in no way to blame for the mishap, he inevitably became known to the public as the astronaut who lost his capsule. He became more reticent, withdrew even more than usual to the company of his wife Betty and two sons, convinced that he had to prove himself anew.
Grissom got that chance when he was picked as the pilot of America's first two-man spacecraft. With the launching of Gemini 3 on its three-orbit flight on March 23, 1965, Grissom became the first man ever to journey twice into space. Aided by Co-Pilot John Young, he scored yet another space first when he took over the controls himself, skill- fully piloted the craft through a series of tricky orbit-changing maneuvers. After that success, Grissom seemed to loosen up. The Apollo flight would have made him the only man to enter space three times. Hours before last week's disaster, Apollo Program Manager Shea remarked: "Gus really wants this flight. He's determined to keep that thing up there (16 days, if he can."
"It's Fun." Ed White, who came along in the second generation of astronauts in 1962, had the warmth and folksiness that Grissom lacked. In fact, when his celebrated space walk on June 3, 1965 put him in the first rank of astronaut heroes, it was as much for his offhanded casualness as for the feat itself. With the world following his every move, White stepped out of orbiting Gemini 4 at the end of a 24-ft. tether, strolled in space for a spell, then matter-of-factly informed Pilot James Alton McDivitt: "It's fun. I'm not coming in." At one point, McDivitt protested: "Hey, you smeared my window you dirty dog." Replied the floating White: "Yep." He finally returned to the capsule after a 20-minute stroll— during which he maneuvered far more freely than Soviet Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov had in a ten-minute space walk three months before. Said he: "I felt red, white and blue all over."