Questions tagged [project-mercury]
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States.
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Why did MR-3 and MR-4 perform a retrofire?
Mercury-Redstone 3 and 4 were suborbital spaceflights and would have re-entered anyway. Yet, the spacescraft made a retrofire burn after apogee. Was it to adjust the path to land at a specified spot ...
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Escape tower details of Mercury spacecraft
In the details about the escape tower for the Mercury capsule, I noticed that it had three nozzles, all connected to a single combustion chamber of the solid propellant.
How did the designers ensure ...
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Selection of booster for Mercury capsule
How did NASA verify that "Redstone (PGM 11?) was the most suitable rocket to launch Mercury capsule (1st launch)? From books like "Project Mercury - a chronology", and "This new ...
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Deke Slayton's Molded Mercury Capsule Couch?
Recently got a hard question from an observant, sharp-eyed, and curious high school astronomy teacher:
Reference this article about some of the training the Mercury Seven astronauts did. Note that the ...
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What caused the bruises when the Mercury capsule was opened by the astronauts?
I recently read a little about the Liberty Bell 7 incident. I read that one proof that Grissom did not open the hatch by himself is that he has no bruise on his hand which was observed on other ...
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What is this pin on John Glenn's suit jacket?
I'm watching the documentary "The Real Right Stuff". Around the 14 minute mark they show a clip of a news interview of the 7 mercury astronauts describing how their family feels about them ...
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Tracking of spacecrafts of the Mercury project
In the absence of any communication satellite in 1958, back in Mercury times, how did the tracking centers, which were spread world across, communicated with each other, passed on their data to the ...
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What kind of training did chimpanzees go through at the Chimp College?
In the Congress hearings on qualifications for astronauts in July 1962, a "Chimp University" where chimpanzees are trained for spaceflight is mentioned.
Miss COBB. I have passed physical, ...
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How long did the Mercury astronauts have to stay in the isolation tank?
Among the many things Mercury astronaut candidates had to go through, they had to go through a sensory deprivation experiment and spend some time in a sensory isolation tank. How long did they have to ...
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Which spacecraft are models in this Astronaut Group 1+2 photo?
The picture below of NASA Astronaut Groups 1 and 2 was taken in February 1963. Astronaut Group 1 was the original Mercury 7, and are seated in the front row (Cooper, Grissom, Carpenter, Schirra, ...
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What pictures did Mrs. Hart show to Congress?
In the record of the July 17 and 18, 1962 "Qualifications for Astronauts" hearings before the special subcommittee on the selection of astronauts that was organized to know if women could ...
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Are there any pictures of the Qualifications for Astronauts hearing for the House of Representatives?
On July 17th and 18th, 1962, a hearing was organized in front of Congress for the special subcommittee on the selection of astronauts. This hearing was organized to ascertain whether women could be ...
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How did astronauts tie the laces on their gloves?
I've been looking through images from the Smithsonian regarding early space exploration. In particular, I found this picture of a spacesuit glove, that has laces on it. In the picture's description, ...
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Were photographs or optical measurements of orbital craft from the ground ever used during early crewed spaceflight missions?
The lengthy and interesting blogpost Baker-Nunn Camera, Island Lagoon on Colin Mackellar's Honeysuckle Creek website includes a photo of "Gemini 10 (with John Young and Mike Collins onboard) and ...
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How did the Mercury Seven compare in military seniority?
The seven Mercury astronauts were required to be military test pilots, which in turn meant that they held a rank as a military officer. At the time they were chosen (i.e. not later promotions), how ...
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