NASA MISSIONS PROJECT MERCURY Project Mercury II
Video from the channel Nasa Library about Project Mercury, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 25:47. Language: English. Video type: Archive footage.
What it shows
A NASA film covering Project Mercury from start to finish. The program was born on October 7, 1958, with one goal: to put a man into orbit around the Earth and recover him safely. The film explains why the Atlas, an adapted intercontinental ballistic missile, and the Redstone were chosen for the suborbital flights. It also shows the capsule: about nine feet tall, six feet in diameter at the base, and over two tons at launch. It had a titanium inner structure, René 41 and beryllium outer shingles, and a laminated fiberglass ablative heat shield. A large portion covers astronaut selection. Of 473 test pilot files, 110 met the requirements, and 32 passed the medical and psychological tests at the Lovelace Clinic and the Wright Air Development Center. Seven remained: Slayton, Shepard, Schirra, Grissom, Glenn, Cooper, and Carpenter.
When and where it was filmed
The footage dates from the program's era. It includes scenes at McDonnell, Langley, the Lewis center in Cleveland, Wallops Island, Little Creek (Virginia), and Cape Canaveral. The narration runs through to the end of the program, in May 1963.
Context
The film shows the astronauts' training: centrifuges, pressure chamber, quartz lamps to simulate reentry heat, and diving with the Navy's Underwater Demolition Team 21. The chimpanzee Ham flew on MR-2. His rocket climbed faster and higher than planned, but the abort system worked. The crewed flights follow. On May 5, 1961, Shepard reached 116 miles aboard Freedom 7. On July 21, 1961, Grissom flew, with a new window and the explosive hatch. On February 20, 1962, Glenn completed three orbits aboard Friendship 7. Carpenter flew 4 hours and 53 minutes aboard Aurora 7, and Schirra completed six orbits in 9 hours and 13 minutes aboard Sigma 7. The final flight was Cooper's aboard Faith 7, on May 15, 1963, with over 34 hours in orbit. According to the film, the program lasted four years, eight months, and five days, and totaled 54 hours of crewed flight.