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Designing the Perfect Astronaut
The experimental, creative, and at times imaginative nature of the Mercury program has always fascinated me. The program and the decision that preceded it answer a totally unique question: what do you...
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Sailors, Ships, and Splashdowns
I’ve been posting a lot about landing methods – NASA’s use of splashdowns, why the method was not a long-term solution to the problem of returning from space, and a comparison to Soviet methods. The...
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Shepard: First American in (Suborbital) Space
I’ve talked in previous posts about the first manned Soviet space program, Vostok, and Yuri Gagarin’s historic Vostok 1 flight. One aspect neither of these posts touched on, however, was the reaction...
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Vintage Space Fun Fact: The Mercury ’7′s
Each of the Mercury missions had a name followed by the number 7. Alan Shepard flew Freedom 7, Gus Grissom in Liberty Bell 7, John Glenn aboard Friendship 7 (pictured), Scott Carpenter in Aurora 7,...
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Schirra’s Stellar Navigation
John Glenn trains in a Mercury simulator, the Mercury Procedures Trainer. Credit: NASA Simulators have always been an integral part of spaceflight. In the case of the all important reentry and landing...
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