Project Mercury
US manned spaceflights began with the mercury space capsules. This program was to discover whether people could live and function in zero-gravity and in space without the protection of our atmosphere. The capsules were fitted onto the tops of rockets that were slight variations of military missiles. There were 7 manned Mercury flights. The first two were suborbital, they just launched the capsule into space, then right back down into the Atlantic. The capsule did not orbit the earth and was more like a bomb with a person in it.
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| Mercury capsule with the escape tower |
John Glenn is well known as the first US astronaut to orbit the earth, however, the first US astronaut in space was Alan Shepard from Derry NH. You may notice the section of I-93 from the Mass border to Manchester is named in his honor. Look for the signs on your next trip. Alan Shepard's flight was just three weeks after the Soviet Yuri Gagarin was the first human to orbit the earth.
Missiles were still pretty unreliable and blew up on the launch pad or went off course frequently. In fact an unmanned test flight before Shepard's, intended to show how ready we were, blew up on the launch pad in front of all the news people. The capsules were fitted with an escape tower, which was a mini rocket mounted on the top to carry the capsule and the astronaut to safety in the event of a missile malfunction. It never had to be used on any of the missions.
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