Hidden Figures - Margot Lee Shetterly

from the capsule in the Back River on
Langley’s East Side. With the experience
of Alan Shepard and Virgil Grissom as a
guide, NASA physicians worried a little
less about the health hazards Glenn might
face while on board, since in the capsule
he would be hooked up to wires like a
lab rat, his every vital sign transmitted to
and monitored by the doctors on the
ground. The specter of human error was
ever-present, of course, so Glenn worked
the simulators and procedures trainers
obsessively, putting himself through
hundreds of simulated missions, honing
his responses to every failure scenario
the engineers could imagine.
As a seasoned test pilot, Glenn knew
that the only way to remove all danger
from the mission was to never leave
Earth. The former Marine was the first