The average fatality rate of a Navy test pilot is 23 percent, but any pilot you're talking to is still alive, which means he isn't average.'īut when Shepard straps into the rig and starts tumbling, he becomes disoriented and nearly passes out. 'Compared to what we do,' Alan Shepard (Jake McDorman) tells LIFE magazine writer Loudon Wainwright (Josh Cooke) while waiting his turn on the machine, 'it is a carnival ride. The scene changes from mission control to the point of view of Gordon Cooper (Colin O'Donoghue) riding the Multiple-Axis Space Test Inertia Facility, MASTIF or 'gimbal rig,' a three-ring metal contraption that simulates the roll, pitch and yaw motions that a Mercury astronaut may encounter in space. Related: The Mercury 7 Astronauts: NASA's First Space Travelers

If we don't get these procedures down cold, we really could blow up Titusville, or Orlando, or Tampa. The press will be there, representatives of your federal government will be there, the wives and children of our astronauts will be there. 'We have a public launch of a test rocket in four days. 'We'll keep running this simulation until we get it right,' says Kraft. Glynn Lunney (Jackson Pace) explains to the flight controllers that the sim was designed to test the team's response to multiple corrupted feeds brought on by 'large birds' causing physical damage to the comm link. It is just a game, right?' Ryerson says as work to complete the control center continues in the background and an on screen caption reads that they are still 80 hours out from the actual launch of the test mission. Missile telemetry monitor Ryerson (Chris Mayers) tries to defuse the tension. 'Do not hesitate in this room! I ask you a question, you give me an answer. 'Hope no one has family in Titusville,' another flight controller says. The Mercury-Atlas 1 rocket fails, breaking apart 10 miles downrange. Range safety officer Roy Hutmacher (Joshua Ritter), seated at a console to Kraft's left, announces he is going to send the destruct command to avoid the vehicle from impacting a populated area, but hesitates after Kraft questions his call. Are you sure?'Ĭhris Kraft (Eric Ladin) is presiding over Mercury Mission Control when, just seconds into a launch, the rocket goes awry.

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