The “Deep Space Network”

By: George Leopold

The space history community is a tight knit group, enthusiastic, collaborative and often more than willing to point out an error. It’s the way peer review should work.

An example of collaboration surfaced this week when Andy Saunders, the digital imaging genius and author of the acclaimed Apollo Remastered, pinged me on WhatsApp from his home across the pond in Cheshire, U.K. Andy is hard at work on his next book focused on Projects Mercury and Gemini.

Andy and I had previously worked together to show that electrostatic discharge may have caused the premature hatch explosion of Gus Grissom’s Liberty Bell 7 after splashdown in July 1961. Recently, Saunders came across an obscure but colorful quote found in a ground-to-spacecraft communications transcript from the Gemini X mission in July 1966. Donald “Deke” Slayton, the grounded Mercury astronaut who was then NASA’s director of flight crew operations, urged tight-lipped commander John Young to speak more with ground controllers.

"You guys are doing a commendable job of maintaining radio silence,” Slayton told the crew. “As soon as the French stop shooting at you, why don't you do a little more talking from here on?"

To what precisely was Slayton referring? Andy wanted to know. An Americanism? A ground station in the Atlantic? I had no idea, but told Andy I asked around.

Coincidentally, my wife and I have recently moved back to Slayton’s home state, America’s Dairyland, aka, Wisconsin. Slayton hailed from Sparta in western part of the state. I had recently made the acquaintance of Alyssa Young, who runs the Deke Slayton Memorial Space and Bike Museum in Sparta. I wondered if she had a clue as to what Slayton was referring.

Also stumped, Alyssa said she’d run the line by Vance Brand, Slayton’s crewmate on the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, and Fred Haise of Apollo 13 fame. Alyssa was unsure either would know what Slayton was referring to, but figured one of the astronauts would know someone who could translate Deke-speak.

We’re still trying to solve Andy Saunder’s riddle, and we may never come up with a definitive answer. But the point is there is a network of space researchers, historians and enthusiasts ready and willing to assist on the most esoteric subjects.

I’m reminded of another occasion when historian and author Jeff Shesol was in the throes of writing his fine book about the Cold Warrior and astronaut John Glenn. Jeff needed to know the precise location of a switch in Glenn’s Friendship 7 spacecraft. The National Air & Space Museum where the spacecraft was displayed was closed during the pandemic. 

Undaunted, a Smithsonian docent, Bill Causey, managed to gain access to the museum, locate the switch and its position and thereby ensure the accuracy of Shesol’s account of Glenn’s failure to throw the switch as he turned his spacecraft around in orbit.

Those are just two examples of how space researchers and authors help each other with access to primary sources and introductions to the engineers and technicians who took humans to the moon. 

Collaboration improves accuracy, and thoroughly researched space history adds to our understanding of our place in the solar system.