Project Mercury: 1958 October
Video from the channel NASA2007 about Project Mercury, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 9:47. Language: English. Video type: Archive footage.
What it shows
NASA film on the early days of Project Mercury, approved on October 7, 1958, a week after the new space agency was created, with the goal of putting a man into orbit and recovering him safely. It presents the Atlas, a stage-and-a-half launch vehicle 67 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter, with five engines and 360,000 pounds of thrust; the Redstone, with 76,000 pounds of thrust, for the suborbital flights; the 17-foot escape tower and the Little Joe, with eight solid engines and 340,000 pounds of thrust. It describes the capsule, 9 feet tall and 6 feet in diameter at the base, with a titanium structure, René 41 and beryllium shingles, a fiberglass ablative heat shield, an impact bag and an automatic stabilization system with a fly-by-wire manual mode.
When and where it was filmed
Period footage with contemporary narration, filmed during the program's development amid tests, factories and training classrooms.
Context
A Space Task Group coordinated the armed forces, other agencies and industry; within four months the launch vehicles and capsule were awarded. Seven jet test pilots with at least 1,500 flight hours and engineering training were selected, and they trained in celestial mechanics, space medicine and survival. The Little Joe was also used to study acceleration on a rhesus monkey named Sam.