Aerospace Corporation Engineers Who Helped Make
John Glenn's '62 Flight Possible Witness His Return to Space

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. (12/7/98) -- Aerospace Corporation engineers John Bazyk, 80, and Bill Newbold, 65, watched from the guest bleachers Oct. 29 at Cape Canaveral as Sen. John Glenn rocketed skyward for the second time in their careers. They agreed: It was awesome.

Both men were there when astronaut John Glenn climbed into a Mercury space capsule atop an Atlas rocket Feb. 20, 1962, and made history as the first American to orbit Earth. Both men contributed to making Glenn's first flight a success. And both men were at the Cape 36 years later for Glenn's return to flight aboard STS-95, invited by NASA along with other Mercury program pioneers.

Twelve busloads of guests were on hand for the event, including those who worked on the capsule, Navy recovery-ship personnel who retrieved the capsule, the maker of Glenn's spacesuit, and the switchboard operator who placed the call from Glenn in space to his wife.

In 1962 it was Bazyk's job to examine every facet of the Atlas for "single-point failure." The vehicle was an intercontinental ballistic missile not originally designed to carry human passengers.

"If a single thing went wrong," Bazyk said, "a human life would be lost." It was imperative that the Atlas be "manrated," upgraded in reliability to the highest level of safety. It proved to be the mechanism for the nation's first manned, orbiting spaceflight.

Bazyk, who came to Aerospace in 1961, was hired by program director Ben Hohmann to monitor and review flight performance of all Air Force test flight launches. Bazyk looked for problems that required redesign and followed through to verify corrective action.

Cutting it Close

"When Glenn achieved orbit, there were exactly three seconds of propellant left," Newbold said.

Bazyk described himself as apprehensive at Glenn's first launch into space. "My fingers were crossed. Every rocket launch is really a controlled explosion.

"When STS-95 launched," he said, "it jumped off the pad like a jackrabbit. The sun was shining; it was beautiful."

Bazyk works full time in the Medium Launch Vehicles office on ground system pneumatics for the Atlas II and Delta II. He works for another original Mercury program member, Joe Wambolt, associate principal director at the Western Range, Vandenberg Air Force Base.