"That's It"

Poet John Donne once listed "goe and catche a falling star" among life's impossible jobs. And Air Force Captain Harold E. Mitchell, who had been assigned the chore, last week had reason to agree: he had missed the week before. His specially equipped C-119 Flying Boxcar, patrolling a 12,000-sq.-mi. patch of the Pacific near Hawaii, had tried to snare Discoverer XIII's descending instrument capsule, coming from outer space, in midair. He almost caught it--but had to watch helplessly while the capsule fell to the ocean below, to be picked up by the U.S. Navy.

Narrow Margin. Last week Mitchell got another chance. Discoverer XIV had been fired atop a Thor-Agena rocket from Vandenberg, Calif., and once again Mitchell's squadron was alerted. Mitchell slapped a cap on his red-thatched head, kissed his wife and promised: "I'll get it this time, honey." This time he did. But the margin of success was narrow indeed.

For its first six passes around the earth, Discoverer XIV looked sick. At the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division in Inglewood, Calif., the project officer, Colonel C. Lee Battle, listened gloomily as tracking reports filtered in. The news was bad: on only its second pass, Discoverer XIV started to pitch drunkenly; its stabilizing jets, struggling desperately to halt the satellite's violent gyrations, began draining precious fuel. Battle figured Discoverer's fuel supply would be so low by the 17th circuit--when its instrument package was to be cut loose--that the capsule could not be aimed at the programed target area. He sighed: "We're dead." Battle's pessimism was premature. When its erratic wobbling was corrected, Discoverer XIV's tanks still held 1,000 lbs. of gas pressure --more than enough to launch its capsule directly at the target, a plot of ocean 390 miles southwest of Hawaii.

Dead Ahead. Four minutes after Discoverer's capsule dropped back toward earth at an electronic command. Captain Mitchell picked up radio signals and spotted its brightly colored parachute, dead ahead at 16,000 ft. Under his fuselage, in an inverted V, hung twin 38-ft. booms; between them, trapeze--fashion, stretched a nylon rope and a grappling hook with which Mitchell hoped to foul the cords of Discoverer's parachute, snag its canopy. Winch operators would then take over, reel the dangling capsule into the plane. At 12,000 ft. Mitchell made a pass--and missed by a breathtaking 6 in. The parachute continued its float down. Mitchell made another pass at it at 10,000 ft., but brought his Cng in too high. He wheeled back for a third try, which he knew must be his last. At 8,500 ft. Mitchell carefully made his final pass, heard a crewman shout: "That's it. You've got hold of it."

For his "feat of great national significance," Mitchell was promptly awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. And General Electric Co. hinted that a Discoverer capable of carrying a small primate--probably a chimpanzee--would be ready for firing into space within a month.

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