NASA's Project Mercury Summation. Manned Rocket Launches in the 1960's - CharlieDeanArchives
Video from the channel Charlie Dean Archives about Project Mercury, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 25:47. Language: English. Video type: Archive footage.
What it shows
NASA film reviewing Project Mercury from its approval on October 7, 1958, to the final flight on May 15, 1963. It presents the launch vehicles: the Atlas, an intercontinental missile adapted for orbit, and the Redstone, with 76,000 pounds of thrust, for the suborbital flights. It describes the capsule: about nine feet tall, six feet in diameter at the base and over two tons, with a titanium hull, René 41 and beryllium shingles and a fiberglass ablative heat shield.
It details the astronaut selection: of 473 test pilot records, 110 met the requirements, 69 were called in, 47 volunteered and 32 passed medical tests at the Lovelace Clinic and stress tests at the Wright Air Development Center. Seven were chosen: Slayton, Shepard, Schirra, Grissom, Glenn, Cooper and Carpenter, trained at Langley by Robert Gilruth's Space Task Group with centrifuges, simulators and underwater swimming.
When and where it was filmed
It is period footage of the tests and missions (Cape Canaveral, Wallops Island, Langley, Dayton, Cleveland) edited just after the program ended, in 1963.
Context
The chimpanzee Ham flew on MR-2: the rocket was faster and went higher than planned, enduring 18 g instead of 11, but the mission was deemed a success. Shepard flew on Freedom 7 on May 5, 1961, reaching 116 statute miles, and Grissom on MR-4 on July 21, debuting the window and the explosive hatch. Glenn completed three orbits on Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. Carpenter followed (Aurora 7, three orbits, 4 h 53 min), then Schirra (Sigma 7, six orbits, 9 h 13 min) and Cooper (Faith 7, 22 orbits, over 34 hours). In total, four years, eight months and five days, 900,000 miles and 54 hours of crewed flight.