Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The spacecraft, Mercury capsule #11, was nicknamed Liberty Bell 7. It was piloted by astronaut Virgil "Gus" Grissom . The spaceflight lasted 15 minutes 30 seconds, reached an altitude of more than 102.8 nautical miles (190.4 km), and flew 262.5 nautical miles (486.2 km) downrange, landing in the Atlantic Ocean .
Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (April 3, 1926 – January 27, 1967) was an American engineer and pilot in the United States Air Force, as well as one of the original men, the Mercury Seven, selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for Project Mercury, a program to train and launch astronauts into outer space.
The Liberty Bell 7 capsule sank after filling with water. [ 4 ] [ 81 ] [ 82 ] Although a helicopter managed to secure the capsule and attempted to lift it, the weight of the water added 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg) to the load.
NASA did not agree, arguing the hatch could accidentally open, as it had on Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 flight, so the Manned Spacecraft Center designers rejected the explosive design in favor of a mechanically operated one for the Gemini and Apollo programs. [38]
In fact, Grissom was assigned to command the first flights of both Gemini and Apollo. Grissom died in the Apollo 1 fire because there was no quick-opening hatch on the Block 1 Apollo Command Module—a design choice made because NASA had determined that the explosion in the hatch on Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 had been most likely self-initiated.
Freedom 7 (Spacecraft No. 7) at the United States Naval Academy, 2010 Liberty Bell 7 (Spacecraft No. 11) at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center , 2010 Friendship 7 (Spacecraft No. 13) at the National Air and Space Museum , 2009
Mercury-Redstone 3, or Freedom 7, was the first United States human spaceflight, on May 5, 1961, piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard. It was the first crewed flight of Project Mercury . The project had the ultimate objective of putting an astronaut into orbit around the Earth and returning him safely.
Juno I awaiting launch with Explorer I. Juno I was a derivative of the Jupiter-C, used to launch the first American satellite, Explorer 1, on January 31, 1958.Although the U.S. possibly could have put a satellite into orbit before the Soviet Union had the ABMA been allowed to attempt a satellite launch in August 1956, the Eisenhower administration wanted the first U.S. satellite to be launched ...