LIer recalls role in manned space flight

Exactly 50 years ago, Arthur Cohen sat tensely in the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland as Alan Shepard was about to blast off from Cape Canaveral in Florida and make history as the first American to fly in space.

It was May 5, 1961, and Cohen, now of Port Washington, was heading the IBM Project Mercury team that provided crucial computer support to NASA as the world watched from the edge of its seats.

"I suppose our hearts were pounding a little bit" as Shepard lifted off, recalled Cohen. "We had tested out the system very thoroughly so we were pretty confident, but we were obviously concerned about Shepard."

Today, Cohen, 83, will appear in Cape Canaveral at a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Shepard's flight, congratulating former IBM teammates and others who helped make the trip a success. Shepard's three daughters, Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter, and Bob Moser, chief test conductor for the launch, also are expected at the event.

Cohen, now an adjunct professor of mathematics at Nassau Community College, recalled that tensions were high before Shepard's risky launch, as the Cold War space race with the Russians raged. Three weeks earlier, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had beaten Shephard to the punch by becoming the first human in space. That was on top of the Russians launching the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, in October 1957.

Cohen said IBM's role, while not as glamorous as the Mercury astronauts' work, was essential. The team provided real-time data collection -- long before modern computers simplified the process -- to NASA, and did calculations such as determining where Shepard's capsule would land if the mission were suddenly aborted.

"We were behind the scenes. We were the silent partners in all of this," Cohen said.

Besides Goddard, which was the central communication hub for Project Mercury, IBM also had teams at NASA's Mission Control in Cape Canaveral and in Bermuda. At Goddard, Cohen said his team of about 70 IBM programmers and mathematicians were tired because the launch had been delayed from May 2.

"We were tired but we had a lot of adrenaline running," he said.

They also knew Shepard's life was at risk. "He was the bravest kind of guy you could ever imagine, to sit on top of a rocket 83 feet high, filled with rocket fuel," Cohen said.

But when the mission went perfectly and Shepard's Freedom 7 capsule splashed down 15 minutes later 303 miles away, the Goddard Center exploded with joy. "We kissed everybody. We were pretty proud we were able to do this," Cohen said.

Three weeks later, emboldened by the triumph, President John F. Kennedy announced another goal: America was going to the moon.