Friendship 7: First Human Orbit of Earth
Video from the channel Ambient Conspiracy about Mercury-Atlas 6, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 3:33. Language: English. Video type: Archive footage.
Period footage, with narration, of the Friendship 7 flight in 1962. It was the first crewed orbital flight by the United States, with Marine Corps lieutenant colonel John Glenn at the controls.
The countdown, liftoff, and orbital insertion are shown. The rocket weighed a quarter of a million pounds and its thrust was equivalent to three and a half million horsepower. Glenn reports that all systems are go, that he feels fine, and that he can see the booster a couple of hundred yards away. He is cleared for at least seven orbits.
The narration follows the capsule through the tracking network: Bermuda, Kano (Nigeria), and the ship Coastal Sentry in the Indian Ocean. Over Africa it travels at 17,545 mph (about 28,200 km/h) and circles the globe in 88 minutes.