What did NASA need? Data! It needed its astronauts to go up and come back down. It needed their hearts to beat, slow or fast, and, crucially, to be recorded. It needed them to climb out of the capsules triumphant. What NASA did not need was any actual piloting. The control of rocket engines was too important, too big, to attach to a button or a lever beneath a single human’s fingertip. Even one so steady as John Glenn’s.
