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Project Mercury Purpose
The group responsible for Project Mercury was NASA's Space Task Group, and the goals of the program were to orbit a manned spacecraft around Earth, investigate the pilot's ability to function in space, and to recover both pilot and spacecraft safely. -
Development
The beginning of the effort to send a man to space cannot be pinpointed to, but it was made from the mind of a man. The life of project mercury was about 4 2/3 years, from the time of its official go-ahead to the completion of the 34-hour orbital mission of Astronaut Cooper. -
Early Stages-1
The American public first met the seven men chosen to be this country's first human space voyagers on April 9, 1959, at a press conference in Washington, D.C. The men were dubbed "astronauts." -
Project Mercury's Successful Failure
NASA launched Mercury-Atlas 3 (MA-3). While technically a flight test failure, the mission had the unexpected consequence of successfully demonstrating the Mercury spacecraft abort system under realistic emergency flight conditions. Mercury-Atlas 3 lifted of the launch pad on Tuesday, 25 April 1961. The auto pilot failed and the ship went off course. -
Early Stages-2
Alan Shepard was chosen for the first manned Mercury launch, becoming the first American to fly in space on May 5, 1961. His Freedom 7 capsule launched from Complex 5 at Cape Canaveral aboard a Redstone rocket. The capsule reached an altitude of 116 miles during his suborbital flight and splashed down 304 miles out into the Atlantic. The flight lasted just over 15 minutes. -
Early Stages-3
Another major first was achieved during the third Mercury mission on February 20, 1962, when John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. His Friendship 7 capsule launched aboard a Mercury-Atlas rocket, and during his almost five-hour flight he circled Earth three times before splashing down in the Atlantic 800 miles southeast of Bermuda.