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I Was Ejected from a Spaceship |
Memoir by |
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June 1999 | ||||||||||
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| I was ejected from a spaceship — and I didn't know it was a spaceship at the time. This brief encounter with international politics happened in 1958. I was working for Convair Astronautics, writing propulsion system maintenance manuals for the Atlas missile system, the intercontinental ballistic missles (ICBMs). One day I happened to pass a missile under construction and decided to look around and familiarize myself with the thrust chambers and how they were supplied with fuel and oxygen while gimballing to guide the missile. I was taking notes and a high-level supervisor asked me to leave the missile, which I did immediately, having spent much of my life in high-security areas. At the time I didn't think much about the incident, but later when Missile 10-B was launched I learned that it was a very special vehicle, designed to go into orbit, carrying a message from President Eisenhower to the world. The Russians had put Sputnik up there, but we put up a missile as big as a railroad car. I saw Missile 10-B once briefly as it orbited; it was near sunset and I saw it shining in the sun. The radio broadcast programmed into it from President Eisenhower to the people of the world was:
Atlas Missile 10-B circled the Earth about 500 times, 12,500,000 miles, for thirty-three days; re-entering the atmosphere near Midway Island in the Pacific, and burning up like a meteor January 21, 1959.
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© 1999 Wilfred R. Franson |
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