The Mercury Project

The Mercury Project was designed to put a man in orbit around the Earth. Thankfully, NASA was successful. NASA's goals were to:

1)To orbit a manned spacecraft around Earth

In doing this NASA would have to follow certain guidelines:

A) Use existing technology and off-the-shelf equipment wherever practical.

B) The simplest and most reliable approach to system design would be

used.

C) An existing launch vehicle would be used to place the spacecraft

into orbit.

And other guidelines to help make the space program successful!

The first American to do this was Alan B. Shepard, spending 15 minutes, and 22 seconds in sub-orbital flight on May 5, 1961.

The Mercury Capsule

The Mercury Capsule was a coned shaped capsule. The measurements of this capsule were two meters (6 ft, 10in) long, 1.9 meters (6 ft, 2 1/2 in) in diameter, a 5.8
meter (19 ft, 2 in). The capsule would be carried up to space by a Mercury-Redstone (for sub-orbital) and the Mercury-Atlas (for orbital flights). Alan Shepard, and Gus Grissom were the only two in sub-orbital. John Glenn, Scott Carpentar, Walter Schirra, and Gordon Cooper all went into orbital flights.
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