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Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More
Project Mercury: America's First Steps Into Space
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In the late 1950s, the United States found itself trailing in the space race as the Soviet Union achieved one milestone after another. In response, NASA launched Project Mercury, an ambitious effort to put an American into space using little more than experimental rockets, cramped capsules and sheer determination. Explosions near disasters and political pressure surrounded every mission. Yet the program would lay the foundation for for landing humans on the moon. Learn more about the Mercury program and America's first manned space flights on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by Newspapers.com as a history buff, you know that while textbooks record the dates of our nation's conflicts, they often lose the voices of the individuals who served. This Memorial Day, as we honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice, Newspapers.com invites you to go beyond the monument and discover the personal stories of the people we remember. Think of it as a bridge to the past, giving you access to over a billion pages of primary source history. This is your chance to move past the generalities of war and find the specific local heartbeat of that era. Newspapers.com provides a vibrant, unfiltered view of the past, letting you see the nuance, the sacrifice, and the everyday lives that shape the world that we live in today. It's more than an archive, it's a way to ensure these stories are never forgotten. This Memorial Day, give a voice to the names in your family tree. Visit newspapers.com today and use promo code everything everywhere at checkout for 20% off your subscription. Newspapers.com honor the past by uncovering its stories. This episode is sponsored by Quince. I recently moved into a new, larger place and I face the challenge of decorating it. I of course, am turning to Quince to help get the job done. In addition to clothes, Quince offers stylish home furnishings that makes my place look great at affordable prices. And I've also recently picked up a second cashmere sweater that I've talked about before just because I like it so much. The great thing about Quint's is that their prices are 50 to 60% lower than those of similar brands. How Quint's works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middleman so you're paying for quality, not brand markup. Everything is designed to last and makes getting dressed and decorating your home easy. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to Quince.com daily for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q U I-N-E.com daily Quince for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com daily. When the USSR launched Sputnik on October 4, 1957, it sent the United States into a panic. The Soviet launch shocked the United States politically and culturally. Americans feared that the Soviet Union had surpassed them technologically and militarily, especially because the rockets capable of launching satellites could also deliver nuclear weapons. The Americans, who had already been working on sending an artificial satellite into orbit, had been shown up in a public and historically humiliating fashion. The Eisenhower administration responded on multiple fronts. In July of 1958, Congress passed the National Aeronautics and Space act, creating NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which officially opened its doors on October 1, 1958. One of its first and most urgent mandates was to put an American in space before the Soviets could do so. Before NASA existed, the United States Air Force had been developing its own human space flight concept called man in Space Soonest or miss, which is a horrible acronym if you're trying to do something first. When NASA was established, it absorbed much of this work. The new civilian agency moved with unusual speed. On November 26, 1958, less than two months after NASA's founding, the agency formally approved Project Mercury, named after the swift messenger God of Roman mythology. The program's stated goals were straightforward but technically staggering for the time. One, they were to place a human being into orbital flight around the Earth, two, they were to investigate the body's ability to function in space, and three, recover both the astronaut and the spacecraft safely. However, the implied goal, which was never stated in official documents, was equally important. Beat the Soviets. No one knew for certain whether a human could survive weightlessness for extended periods. Scientists had debated whether astronauts might become disorientated, lose consciousness, or even go insane in zero gravity. So the first order of business was to create a space capsule, which had never been done before. The Mercury capsule was designed by a team led by Max Fagot. Fagot's design was deliberately simple and conservative. A truncated cone with a heat shield on the blunt end, chosen because blunt body re entry was better understood and more controllable than a pointed shape. The capsule measured just 9ft 5 inches tall and 6ft 2 and a half inches in diameter at its base and weighed roughly 3,000 pounds. It was by any measure tiny, barely larger than a phone booth. The astronaut lay on a form fitted couch in a semi reclined position. There was almost no room to move. Early astronauts noted only half jokingly, that you didn't climb into a Mercury capsule, you wore it. The spacecraft had approximately 120 controls, 55 electrical switches, 30 fuses and 35 mechanical levers. Despite this complexity, the capsule was designed so that in an emergency, an unconscious astronaut could complete the mission automatically. Every aspect of the mission had to be invented from scratch, including tracking systems, spacesuits, recovery operations, and astronaut training procedures. The other important thing was finding astronauts to put inside the capsule. NASA's criteria were very strict. Candidates had to be military Test pilots under 40 years old, under 5ft 11 inches tall, to fit in the capsule with at least 15 hours of flight time and a bachelor's degree in engineering or an equivalent field. From 508 military test pilots that were screened, 110 were selected for further evaluation. Those men endured days of physical examinations, psychological tests and stress assessments. The final seven were chosen in February of 1959 and announced to the public. On April 9, 1959, NASA introduced the world to the Mercury Seven, the first American astronauts. The public's embrace of the Mercury astronauts was immediate and overwhelming. Life magazine purchased exclusive rights to their personal stories, and the seven men became the most famous Americans alive. They were fighter pilots, family men and heroes, and exactly the image that NASA wanted to portray. Tray. Before sending humans into space, NASA conducted a series of uncrewed test flights. These missions tested launch vehicles, heat shields, escape systems, and recovery procedures. Several of the flights failed. Rockets exploded, capsules malfunctioned, and systems failed unexpectedly. One major problem involved the launch vehicles themselves. The Redstone rocket, used for suborbital flights, and the Atlas rocket, intended for orbital missions, both had reliability problems. Atlas missiles in particular, had a disturbing tendency to explode during testing. Convincing astronauts to sit on top of these rockets required enormous confidence and courage. NASA also used animals in early tests. Monkeys such as Sam, Miss, Sam, Ham and Enos were launched to evaluate the effects of spaceflight on living creatures. Ham, the chimpanzee, became especially famous after successfully performing tasks during a suborbital flight in January 1961. His mission demonstrated that a living being could function in space and survive the stresses of launch and reentry. In 1961, just as NASA was preparing for its first astronaut flight on April 12, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, completing a full orbit of the Earth. The Americans were once again humiliated. President Kennedy, in office for less than three months at this point, faced a crisis of confidence in American technological prowess. Despite this blow to American prestige, NASA continued to execute its plan methodically. The first crewed Mercury mission was Mercury Redstone 3, better known as Freedom 7, which was launched on May 5, 1961. Alan Shepard became the first American in space. The mission was suborbital, meaning that the spacecraft did not orbit Earth, but instead followed a ballistic arc into space before returning to Earth. The flight lasted only about 15 minutes. Shepard's primary goals were to evaluate spacecraft systems, determine whether humans could function in weightlessness and test recovery procedures. The mission succeeded and restored some American confidence. After Gagarin's earlier achievement. The second mission was Mercury Redstone 4 or Liberty Bell 7, flown by Gus Grissom on July 21, 1961. Like Shepard's flight, it was suborbital. The mission itself was largely successful, but it became famous for a near disaster. After splashdown, the capsule's hatch unexpectedly blew open, causing seawater to flood in the spacecraft. Grissom nearly drowned while awaiting rescue and the capsule sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The incident created controversy for years, although later evidence strongly suggested that Grissom did not accidentally trigger the hatch himself. The capsule sank to the bottom of the sea, but was recovered in 1999 with Liberty Bell 7. The suborbital phase of the Mercury program was now over. One reason why the Soviets beat the Americans in putting someone in orbit was that they were willing to take bigger risks. If Gagarin's flight had failed, then the failure would not have been as public as the failure of an American spaceflight. These suborbital flights were part of the slower, more cautious approach that the Americans were taking. It caused them to miss several firsts in space, but contributed to their long term success. The next Mercury flight would be the one that finally equaled the achievement of the Soviets by placing a man into orbit. Mercury Atlas 6 or Friendship 7 was launched on February 20, 1962 carrying John Glenn. Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, completing three orbits during a mission lasting nearly five hours. The flight was a major triumph for the United States. However, the mission was not without problems. During the flight, telemetry suggested that the capsule's heat shield might be loose. Mission control feared that the shield could fail during reentry, which would have doomed Glenn. To reduce the risk, they instructed him to leave the retrorocket package attached during re entry to help hold the heat shield in place. Glenn survived safely and later analysis showed that the warning sensor had malfunctioned. With a successful orbital mission and proof that humans could survive and function in space, it was now a matter of continuing to push the boundaries and test the limits of what would be necessary for future planned program. Mercury Atlas 7 followed on May 24, 1962, with Scott Carpenter aboard Aurora 7. The mission's goals included conducting scientific experiments and further evaluating human performance in orbit. Carpenter completed three orbits successfully, but consumed more fuel than expected due to maneuvering and drifting off schedule. As a result, the spacecraft landed far from the planned recovery zone. Although Carpenter recovered safely, NASA criticized his handling of the mission because fuel management would become increasingly important in later programs. Mercury Atlas 8 launched on October 3, 1962, with Wally Schirra aboard the capsule, dubbed Sigma 7. Schirra focused heavily on engineering, precision and efficient spacecraft management. Unlike Carpenter's mission, Sigma 7 was deliberately conservative. Schirra minimized unnecessary maneuvers and carefully conserved fuel. The six orbit mission was extremely successful and demonstrated that astronauts could operate effectively in space for longer durations. The final Mercury mission was Mercury Atlas 9 or Faith 7, launched on May 15, 1963, with Gordon Cooper aboard. By this point, NASA wanted to push the limits of human endurance in space. Cooper spent more than 34 hours in orbit and completed 22 orbits around the Earth. The mission proved that astronauts could function effectively in space for over a day, an important milestone for future lunar missions. Towards the end of the flight, electrical failures forced Cooper to perform a largely manual re entry, which he executed with remarkable accuracy. The success of Faith 7 effectively concluded the Mercury program. Of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, one did not fly in the Mercury program. Deke Slayton. In 1962, NASA doctors discovered that he had an irregular heart rhythm condition. Even though Slayton showed no symptoms and remained physically capable, NASA grounded him because the risks of a medical emergency in space were too great to consider. The decision effectively removed him from active flight status during the Mercury disposal, Gemini, and most of the Apollo program. Instead, Slayton became NASA's director of flight Crew Operations, where he played a major role in selecting and assigning astronauts for later missions. After years of medical evaluation, NASA finally restored his flight status in the 1970s, and he eventually flew in space during the 1975 Apollo Soyuz test project, becoming one of the oldest astronauts to fly at that time. A seventh human Mercury mission, which was planned for Alan Shepard, was cancelled when NASA determined that Mercury had achieved its goals and that resources should be directed towards the Gemini and Apollo programs. Most of the other Mercury astronauts continued their career in some fashion. Gus Grissom went on to command a Gemini mission and later died in the Apollo 1 fire. Alan Shepard went on to command Apollo 14 in 1971 and famously hit two golf balls on the moon. John Glenn returned to space in 1998 aboard the space shuttle Discovery at the age of 77, making him the oldest person ever to fly in space. Wally Schirra flew on Gemini 6 and Apollo 7. Gordon Cooper flew on Gemini 5. Scott Carpenter never went to space again, but he did spend 28 days at the bottom of the ocean in the Sealab project. Mercury was a great success even though it didn't beat the Soviets to orbit. It established the foundation on which Gemini and Apollo were built and demonstrated to the world and to the Americans themselves that the United States had the talent, the determination and the audacity to compete in the space age. The Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible, and I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. That's where everything happens that's outside the podcast, and links to those are available in the show Notes. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you too can have it read on the show.