liked to play handball, but they turned this simple street game into an epic battle. Gus was the champion, except for the one time when he supposedly let Alan beat him so he wouldn’t feel bad. To make sure that never happened again, Gus strutted around the Cape squeezing a spring-loaded handgrip to strengthen his hand and wrist muscles so that he could smack the ball even harder, faster. Gus had to win, all of the time. Dominating his peers, even at handball, just might make the hairbreadth of difference when it came to winning the prize of being first into space.
Ultimately, NASA would decide who was the One, but the question would also be posed to the astronauts themselves: “If you can’t make the first flight yourself, which man do you think should make it?” Each would vote for the man he thought would be the best among them to go first. No one was allowed to vote for himself, obviously, since each felt very strongly that he should be chosen.
So they had to prove themselves to their peers, all of the time. If the boys were going waterskiing at the Cape, whoever was in charge of getting the speedboat had to make sure he got the fastest one on the dock. Pansy tourists might like to slalom, but astronauts preferred barefoot skiing, which required far more horsepower. NASA worried that their national treasures might break an ankle going fifty miles an hour on the choppy water, but the astronauts just went faster. Even at a friendly astronaut barbecue, the boys would jockey for position to be the one manning the grill. The wives would roll their eyes while each secretly hoped her husband got the apron and tongs.
When the wives were together, they tried to avoid talking about their husbands’ competition because it was so ferocious. Betty didn’t think Alan liked Gus one bit, and in fact thought Gus was a shade ahead of Alan (and driving Alan nuts because he couldn’t catch her Gus). The competition reached pathological proportions one day at the Cape when Gus spontaneously started shimmying up one of the guy wires that held up the rocket on the launch pad.
“Get down!” the engineers ordered, but Gus wasn’t about to let some pencil neck tell him what to do. Strong as a bear, he climbed higher and higher. This sent the rest of the boys into a tizzy. Alan hopped on the wire and climbed after him, ready to beat Gus to the top.
“Get down!” the engineers called again, but the guys were too pumped on adrenaline to even hear them.
Wally Schirra’s gambit to beat out the rest of the boys was through practical jokes. If the astronauts were on the golf course together and Alan was about to tee off, Wally might goose him with a putter. If Wally “gotcha,” as he called his pranks, that meant he had triumphed over you, at least in his own mind. To his wife, Jo, Wally didn’t care to sugarcoat his competitive nature with jokes. They competed at everything—swimming, diving, waterskiing. One time, when they went out on the tennis court, Wally served as hard as he would to an astronaut, as if his wife were somehow competing with him to be first in space.
But Jo was no shrinking violet. Instead of thwacking back the ball to Wally, she would give it a light tap so it would just go boop over the net. Wally didn’t know how to handle it. Jo “got him.” When Jo won a match she didn’t brag to the other wives, lest they mention it to their husbands. Wally would go ballistic if his comrades knew he had lost in anything to his wife.
After having spent a couple of nights in Cookie Land, the wives could joke about the absurdity of the scene, and each went to sleep glad her astronaut was diligently sticking to his training schedule during his many months down at the Cape. But was her man really staying in like John Glenn with his Bible? Or, God forbid, panting around until the wee hours like Alan, chasing tail like a hound dog, taking advantage of the Strip’s easy drive-up-to-the-door motel access (so you didn’t
Ultimately, NASA would decide who was the One, but the question would also be posed to the astronauts themselves: “If you can’t make the first flight yourself, which man do you think should make it?” Each would vote for the man he thought would be the best among them to go first. No one was allowed to vote for himself, obviously, since each felt very strongly that he should be chosen.
So they had to prove themselves to their peers, all of the time. If the boys were going waterskiing at the Cape, whoever was in charge of getting the speedboat had to make sure he got the fastest one on the dock. Pansy tourists might like to slalom, but astronauts preferred barefoot skiing, which required far more horsepower. NASA worried that their national treasures might break an ankle going fifty miles an hour on the choppy water, but the astronauts just went faster. Even at a friendly astronaut barbecue, the boys would jockey for position to be the one manning the grill. The wives would roll their eyes while each secretly hoped her husband got the apron and tongs.
When the wives were together, they tried to avoid talking about their husbands’ competition because it was so ferocious. Betty didn’t think Alan liked Gus one bit, and in fact thought Gus was a shade ahead of Alan (and driving Alan nuts because he couldn’t catch her Gus). The competition reached pathological proportions one day at the Cape when Gus spontaneously started shimmying up one of the guy wires that held up the rocket on the launch pad.
“Get down!” the engineers ordered, but Gus wasn’t about to let some pencil neck tell him what to do. Strong as a bear, he climbed higher and higher. This sent the rest of the boys into a tizzy. Alan hopped on the wire and climbed after him, ready to beat Gus to the top.
“Get down!” the engineers called again, but the guys were too pumped on adrenaline to even hear them.
Wally Schirra’s gambit to beat out the rest of the boys was through practical jokes. If the astronauts were on the golf course together and Alan was about to tee off, Wally might goose him with a putter. If Wally “gotcha,” as he called his pranks, that meant he had triumphed over you, at least in his own mind. To his wife, Jo, Wally didn’t care to sugarcoat his competitive nature with jokes. They competed at everything—swimming, diving, waterskiing. One time, when they went out on the tennis court, Wally served as hard as he would to an astronaut, as if his wife were somehow competing with him to be first in space.
But Jo was no shrinking violet. Instead of thwacking back the ball to Wally, she would give it a light tap so it would just go boop over the net. Wally didn’t know how to handle it. Jo “got him.” When Jo won a match she didn’t brag to the other wives, lest they mention it to their husbands. Wally would go ballistic if his comrades knew he had lost in anything to his wife.
After having spent a couple of nights in Cookie Land, the wives could joke about the absurdity of the scene, and each went to sleep glad her astronaut was diligently sticking to his training schedule during his many months down at the Cape. But was her man really staying in like John Glenn with his Bible? Or, God forbid, panting around until the wee hours like Alan, chasing tail like a hound dog, taking advantage of the Strip’s easy drive-up-to-the-door motel access (so you didn’t
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