We Also Knew It Would Be Difficult,

The Pilot Looked At His Cues Of Attitude And Speed And Orientation And So On And Responded As He Would From The Same Cues In An Airplane, But There Was No Way It Flew The Same. The Simulators Had Showed Us That.

We Wanted To Be In Great Shape, We Wanted To Be Able To Cope With Zero Gravity, We Wanted To Be Able To Cope With Accelerations And Decelerations And So On. So All Of Us Trained So That We Were Probably In The Best Physical Condition We Had Ever Been In Up Until That Point.

And I Think That Still Is True Of This Business - Which Is Basically Research And Development - That You Probably Spend More Time In Planning And Training And Designing For Things To Go Wrong, And How You Cope With Them, Than You Do For Things To Go Right.

So Everything Turned Out Fine, And We Were Given The Opportunity To Go To Washington And Be Briefed On The Project Of Man In Space, And Given The Opportunity To Choose Whether We Wanted To Get Involved Or Not.

You Have To Be There Not For The Fame And Glory And Recognition And Being A Page In A History Book, But You Have To Be There Because You Believe Your Talent And Ability Can Be Applied Effectively To Operation Of The Spacecraft.