Mercury 13 Page #3

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Mary and I feel very proud of this.

Were real happy to be in Florida.

What a wonderful state you have.

The air racing was very important.

It proved the mettle. It proved that

these gals knew what they were doing.

The racing fraternity was very strong.

The bond was very strong.

On October 4, 1957,

a world-stirring event took place.

Sputnik! My word.

To see this thing going around the world.

Space was very, very exciting then.

Everybody was into this space business.

I do remember

Mothers extraordinary enthusiasm

when she knew that the Sputnik

was gonna be traversing in the sky.

She got us all out of the house and

looking up at the sky, and just, I mean,

she had grapefruit juice in her hand,

and she poured it all over herself.

She was just so excited.

How quickly it went

from just sending up Sputniks

and then sending up animals.

I think everybody was astounded

at those accomplishments.

I remember the Russians had,

at that point in time,

had succeeded in every single endeavor.

They were ahead of us.

The United States needed to catch up.

One of these seven young men

will be the first American into space.

These are the astronauts.

United States Project Mercury.

When this program started,

a lot of the military guys wanted in it.

So they developed criteria

for qualification to be an astronaut.

Each must be:

the graduate of a navy or air force

test pilot school,

1,500 hours of flight time

qualified in jet aircraft,

an engineering background,

and 511 or less.

Thirty-two candidates reported to the

Lovelace Clinic in Albuquerque, New Mexico

for an exhaustive series

of physical examinations.

These tests were divided between those

given under normal clinical procedures

and a series used for the first time

in Project Mercury.

NASA had picked Dr. Lovelace

to set the standards for the astronauts

in the program.

So he had developed the testing,

and he had conducted the testing.

The question is,

is Dr. Lovelaces work done?

We hope to continue to participate

in the program.

I might say that all our doctors

and technicians

are a little tired right at the moment.

My father was

Dr. William Randolph Lovelace II.

He had a great smile,

but he could also be very serious.

He was a surgeon first and foremost,

but was always involved with aviation,

then aerospace medicine.

He was invited to be

head of space medicine for NASA.

That was a fun time

because the seven astronauts came to

our house for dinner almost every night.

And we were instructed

to make conversation with everyone.

So we did, and ate with them,

voted on them each night

in terms of who we liked the best,

and would tell our father

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