Project Mercury

Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. It happened during an exciting time called the Space Race, when the United States and the Soviet Union were competing to achieve new things in space. The main goal of Project Mercury was to send a person into orbit around Earth and bring them back safely. This goal was part of trying to catch up with the Soviet Union, which had already launched the first satellite and the first human into space.

The program included 20 flights without people, some of which carried animals, and six successful flights with astronauts. The astronauts were known as the Mercury Seven, and each of their spacecraft had a name ending with the number 7. Project Mercury cost a lot of money—about $2.83 billion when adjusted for inflation today. The space capsules used in these flights were made by McDonnell Aircraft and could carry water, food, and oxygen for about one day. The flights launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida using rockets changed from Redstone and Atlas D missiles.

The Space Race began in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first satellite. This surprised many people in the United States and led to the creation of NASA. After the United States launched its own satellite called Explorer 1, the next goal was to send a person into space. The Soviet Union achieved this first with cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961. The United States followed with Alan Shepard's suborbital flight and later, John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth in 1962. By the time Project Mercury ended in May 1963, both countries had sent people into space, but the Soviet Union had spent more total time there.

The success of Project Mercury helped make space travel popular, with millions of people following the missions on radio and TV. It also set the stage for Project Gemini, which prepared the way for the Apollo program and eventual crewed lunar landings.

Creation

Project Mercury was officially approved on October 7, 1958, and announced to the public on December 17. Originally called Project Astronaut, it was renamed Mercury after a figure from classical mythology. This name was chosen to match other rocket names like Atlas and Jupiter. The program took over military projects aiming to send people into space.

After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in developing new technologies, including missiles and satellites. In 1957, the Soviet Union shocked the world by launching the first satellite, Sputnik, and later sent a dog into orbit. This led the United States to create NASA, a civilian agency for space exploration. NASA's first goal was to launch a satellite, which it achieved with Pioneer 1 in 1958. The next goal was to send a person into space.

The program aimed to orbit a spacecraft around Earth, check how well a pilot could work in space, and safely recover both the pilot and spacecraft. NASA used existing technology whenever possible and chose simple, reliable designs. The spacecraft needed systems to escape during launch, control its position in orbit, leave orbit, handle reentry, and land in water. A network for communicating with the spacecraft during missions was also built.

Spacecraft

The Mercury spacecraft was designed by Maxime Faget. It was 10.8 feet long and 6.0 feet wide, with a total length of 25.9 feet when the launch escape system was added. The capsule had enough space for one crew member and included 120 controls such as switches, fuses, and levers. The heaviest spacecraft, Mercury-Atlas 9, weighed 3,000 pounds when fully loaded. Its outer skin was made from a special nickel alloy to handle high temperatures.

The spacecraft had a cone shape with a narrow neck and a convex base. The base carried a heat shield made of aluminum honeycomb covered with fiberglass layers. It also had a retropack with three rockets to help slow the spacecraft during reentry. Inside, the astronaut sat in a custom-molded seat with instruments in front, facing the heat shield. The spacecraft relied on ground computers for calculations during reentry, with instructions sent by radio. It did not have an on-board computer.

The astronaut sat with their back to the heat shield, which helped them handle the strong forces during launch and reentry. They wore a special suit with its own oxygen supply for cooling. The cabin had pure oxygen at low pressure to control the environment and save weight. The astronaut could control the spacecraft in three ways: remotely from the ground, automatically by instruments, or manually using controls. This manual control was important, as it allowed astronauts to guide their spacecraft during reentry when needed.

Launch vehicles

A 55-foot-long launch vehicle named Little Joe was used for early tests to check the safety system of the Mercury spacecraft. These tests happened at the moment when the spacecraft faced the strongest air pressure, which made it hard to separate from the rocket. The Little Joe rocket used a special kind of fuel and could reach up to 100 miles in height.

For shorter flights that did not go all the way around Earth, the Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle was used. It was taller than Little Joe and could change direction during flight. For missions that needed to go around Earth, the larger Atlas LV-3B rocket was used. This powerful rocket had two main parts that worked together to give the spacecraft the push it needed to reach orbit.

Astronauts

NASA introduced seven astronauts, called the Mercury Seven, on April 9, 1959. Alan Shepard became the first American in space with a short flight on May 5, 1961, showing that astronauts could handle the strong forces of launch and re-entry. John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth on February 20, 1962, managing some problems during the flight.

The astronauts had many tasks, including talking to the public and visiting places where Project Mercury was being built. They shared their stories with Life magazine, which showed them as dedicated and family-oriented people.

Selection and training

Before Project Mercury, there was no clear way to choose astronauts. NASA decided to look for experienced military test pilots. They needed to be between 25 and 40 years old, no taller than 5 ft 11 in, and have a college degree in science or engineering. From over 500 pilots, 32 were chosen for more tests on their health and mental skills.

The astronauts trained hard, learning to handle the forces of space travel, practicing in special planes to feel weightless, and learning to control a spinning spacecraft. They also practiced communication and how to land safely, both in water and with help from teams on the ground.

Mission profile

In the early missions, a Redstone rocket helped the spacecraft reach a height of about 32 nautical miles. After the rocket stopped, the spacecraft continued on its own and landed in the Atlantic Ocean. These flights lasted about 15 minutes and took the astronaut up to about 102 nautical miles before coming back down.

For the later orbital missions, astronauts prepared for weeks before launch. On the day of the launch, they followed a special diet and wore special suits. After getting into the spacecraft, the rocket lifted it into space. Once in orbit, the spacecraft traveled around Earth every 88 minutes. To come back, the spacecraft used special rockets to slow down and begin reentry. The heat shield protected the astronaut from the extreme heat, and parachutes helped the spacecraft land gently in the ocean. Crew members were then picked up by helicopters and taken to a ship.

Ground control

The number of people helping with a Mercury mission was about 18,000, with many more involved in bringing the spacecraft back safely. Most of these helpers tracked the spacecraft using the Mercury Space Flight Network, a group of 18 stations around the world set up in 1960. These stations talked to the astronauts and collected important information.

Astronauts on the ground sometimes acted as the main voice talking to the astronaut in space, called the Capsule Communicator or CAPCOM. Information from the spacecraft was sent to the Goddard Space Center, where special computers processed it and sent it to the Mercury Control Center at Cape Canaveral. There, the information was shown on screens that displayed where the spacecraft was, its path, and possible emergency landing spots.

Flights

On April 12, 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space on an orbital flight. Alan Shepard became the first American in space on a suborbital flight three weeks later, on May 5, 1961. John Glenn, the third Mercury astronaut to fly, became the first American to reach orbit on February 20, 1962, but only after the Soviets had launched a second cosmonaut, Gherman Titov, into a day-long flight in August 1961. Three more Mercury orbital flights were made, ending on May 16, 1963, with a day-long, 22 orbit flight. However, the Soviet Union ended its Vostok program the next month, with the human spaceflight endurance record set by the 82-orbit, almost 5-day Vostok 5 flight.

All of the six crewed Mercury flights were successful, though some planned flights were canceled during the project. The main medical problems encountered were simple personal hygiene, and post-flight symptoms of low blood pressure. The launch vehicles had been tested through uncrewed flights, therefore the numbering of crewed missions did not start with 1. Also, there were two separately numbered series: MR for "Mercury-Redstone" (suborbital flights), and MA for "Mercury-Atlas" (orbital flights).

The 20 uncrewed flights used Little Joe, Redstone, and Atlas launch vehicles. They were used to develop the launch vehicles, launch escape system, spacecraft and tracking network. One flight of a Scout rocket attempted to launch a specialized satellite equipped with Mercury communications components for testing the ground tracking network, but the booster failed soon after liftoff. The Little Joe program used seven airframes for eight flights, of which three were successful.

Nine of the planned flights were canceled.

Mercury-Jupiter was a proposed suborbital launch configuration consisting of a Jupiter missile carrying a Mercury capsule. Two flights were planned in support of Project Mercury. The flights were canceled due to budget constraints.

Suborbital flights were planned for four other astronauts but the number of flights was cut down gradually and finally all remaining were canceled after Titov's flight.

Mercury-Atlas 9 was intended to be followed by more one-day flights and even a three-day flight but with the coming of the Gemini Project it seemed unnecessary.

Legacy

Today, the Mercury program is remembered as the first American human space program. Although it did not win the race against the Soviet Union, it helped restore national pride and served as a successful foundation for later programs like Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab.

When John F. Kennedy became president, many people, including himself, had doubts about human spaceflight. However, he chose to support the program just before the launch of Freedom 7, which became a public success. After this, most Americans supported human spaceflight, and soon after, Kennedy announced a plan for a mission to land humans on the Moon and bring them back safely before the end of the 1960s.

The six astronauts who flew were honored with medals, parades, and two of them even spoke to a joint session of the US Congress. At the time, no women met the qualifications for the astronaut program, which led to a private project called Mercury 13 where thirteen women completed tests but were never officially trained or selected. Women did not qualify for the astronaut program until 1978, when some finally joined the Space Shuttle program.

Military Highway in Hampton, Virginia and Newport News, Virginia was renamed Mercury Boulevard. In 2011, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers awarded Boeing for important inventions first used on Mercury spacecraft.

Depictions on film

The program was shown in several films and TV shows, including The John Glenn Story, The Right Stuff, From the Earth to the Moon, Hidden Figures, and The Right Stuff.

Commemorations

In 1964, a monument for Project Mercury was placed near Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral. The United States Postal Service also issued a stamp in 1962 to honor the Mercury-Atlas 6 flight.

Displays

Many Mercury spacecraft are displayed in museums across the United States. For example, Friendship 7 is at the National Air and Space Museum, and Freedom 7 is at the United States Naval Academy.

Patches

After the Mercury program, entrepreneurs created commemorative patches for collectors.

Videos

A special documentary about John Glenn was made in 2012 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Friendship 7 flight.

Space program comparison

NASA made an illustration to compare the sizes of three important American space programs. The Apollo program was the largest, followed by Gemini, and then Mercury, which was the smallest. These programs helped the United States explore space during an exciting time called the Space Race.