Project Mercury :: essays research papers

Project MercuryProject Mercury, the first manned U.S. aloofness project, became an officialNASA program on October 7, 1958. The Mercury Program was given ii main butbroad objectives 1. to investigate mans ability to survive and perform inthe space environment and 2. to develop basic space technology and hardware formanned space flight programs to come.NASA also had to find astronauts to fly the spacecraft. In 1959 NASAasked the U.S. military for a list of their members who met certainqualifications. All applicants were ask to have had extensive jet aircraftflight experience and engineering training. The applicants could be no morethan five feet eleven inches tall, do to the limited amount of cabin space thatthe Mercury modules provided. All who met these requirements were also requiredto undergo numerous intense physical and psychological evaluations. Finally,out of a field of 500 mountain who met the experience, training, and heightrequirements, NASA selected seven to become U. S. astronauts. There names,Lieutenant M. Scott Carpenter Air Force Captains L. Gordon Cooper, younger, Virgil Gus Grissom, and Donald K. Deke Slayton Marine Lieutenant Colonel John H.Glenn, Jr. and Navy Lieutenant commanders Walter M. Schirra, Jr., and Alan B.Shepard, Jr. Of these, all flew in Project Mercury except Deke Slayton who wasgrounded for medical reasons. He later became an American crewmember of theApollo-Soyuz Test Project.The Mercury module was a bell make craft. Its base measured exactly74.5 inches wide and it was nine feet tall. For its boosters NASA chose two U.S.military rockets the Armys Redstone, which provided 78,000 pounds of thrust,was used for suborbital flights, and the Air Force Atlas, providing 360,000pounds of thrust, was used for orbital fights. The Mercury craft was fastenedto the top of the booster for launch. Upon reaching the limits of realmsatmosphere the boosters were released from the module, and fell into uninhabitedocean.The first Mercury launc h was performed on May 5, 1961. The ship,Freedom 7, was the first U.S. craft used for manned space flight. AstronautAlan Shepard, Jr. remained in suborbital flight for 15 minutes and 22 seconds,with an accumulated distance of 116 miles.The second and final suborbital mission of the Mercury Project waslaunched on July 21, 1961. Gus Grissom navigated his ship, Liberty Bell 7,through flight for just 15 seconds longer than the previous mission.The next Mercury flight was accomplished using an Atlas booster. OnFebruary 20,1962 it fired up and launched John Glenn, Jr., inside Friendship 7,into orbit. Glenn orbited Earth three times and when he returned the country