Into the New Frontier: Project Mercury

America's bid to put a man in space first

Mercury, the Winged Messenger by Gustav Holst (from The Planets)

Sputnik. NASA Photo.

Let me tell you a story. A long time ago, the United States and what we used to call the Soviet Union were involved in a struggle for survival and power and influence. An undeclared war with many battles. A Cold War.

In 1957, a new front opened up in the Cold War. The Soviets launched a small satellite-a little metal orb with a radio transmitter and antennas. All it did was circle the earth every 90 minutes or so, beeping.

It was called Sputnik. And it scared the hell out of us.

U.S. scientists track Sputnik. LIFE Cover.

Video: Sputnik (Silent; MPEG)

The Americans, of course, had planned to send a satellite of their own into space for a couple of years, but this....they had trumped us. It was a display of technological prowess that had many implications. If they could launch this little orb and make it circle the planet every 90 minutes and make it go beep-beep-beep-beep-beeeep....the Soviets could also, in the future, send bigger satellites up there....satellites that could gaze down upon the Free World and analyze our military capabilites....satellites, possibly, armed with nuclear weapons to drop on us....

Or they could send a man up there. And claim the heavens in the name of Soviet Socialism.

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Yuri Gagarin. From All-Photo.Ru

On April 12, 1961, they did just that. His name was Yuri Gagarin. Just a short time before his flight, aboard a spherical spaceship called Vostok I, Yuri and his fellow Cosmonaut, Gherman Titov, watched a rocket and spacecraft very similar to the ones they themselves would be flying launch from Baikanur Cosmodrome in Soviet Kazakhstan with two dogs aboard. It exploded. That was about the same type of vehicle one of these two young men would be riding into space soon. No matter what your ideology, you have to admit one thing: What Yuri did was VERY brave.

But the United States tried to beat them to it. What used to be called the National Advisory Committee of Aeronautics (NACA) was transformed into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. And in 1959, we started our manned space program.

The "Original 7" Project Mercury astronauts. LIFE Cover.

And with the advent of Project Mercury, the American manned space program was born.

There had been several American military space programs underway before Project Mercury, each run by a different armed service; the Army, Navy, and Air Force all had their own ideas on a manned space program. But after Sputnik, it became obvious that this fragmented approach was just not gonna work. There needed to be a clear objective in this endeavor; there had to be solid leadership; there had to be a concentrated effort, utilizing the cooperative efforts of the best minds from all around the aerospace industry. It was all brought under the control of NASA.

Dr. Wernher von Braun. LIFE Cover.

Around the time of Mercury, NASA was also involved with the Air Force in the X-15 program; the Air Force and North American Aviation (the X-15's manufacturer) wanted to build a reusable, piloted spaceplane to get into space. There were plans for a two-seat X-15B, to be followed by a much more advanced vehicle, the X-20 DynaSoar (which was short for Dynamic Soaring). The X-15B, like the single-seater, was to be launched from a B-52 mother ship; the X-20 was supposed to be launched atop an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), such as a Titan II or an Atlas. But NASA had its own plan to get men in space; the X-15, in their view, was to be used strictly as a test vehicle for materials and systems for their vehicles, which were often referred to as capsules. To NASA, the X-15 was a tool, rather than an end unto itself.

Artist's concept of Mercury's objectives, with a cutaway veiw inside the new spacecraft. NASA Illustration.

NASA saw that this new front in the Cold War required a more expedient solution to the man-in-space problem. Winged, reusable spaceplanes held a lot of promise, but they would be years, if not decades, in the future, as they would have required the development of materials, manufacturing techniques, systems, and support systems that were really not even on the technological horizon yet. A capsule-style spacecraft, however, could be designed more like a spacecraft or a warhead, to be boosted into space by existing missiles, such as the Redstone and Atlas missiles already in the Army and Air Force inventories. And since the physiological effects of space travel on the human body were not yet really understood, the capsule could be made as a largely automated vehicle; the astronaut (star voyager) inside could be analyzed for physiological effects and responses, and (so the engineers and flight surgeons thought) not have to worry about the impending landing-a capsule would re-enter the atmosphere, descend on a parachute, and splash down at sea, where the astronaut and capsule would be recovered by ships, seaplanes, or helicopters.

The McDonnell Mercury space capsule, shown with the escape tower (top) and retro package (bottom) in place. NASA Illustration.

NASA selected McDonnell as the prime contractor for the Mercury capsule. At the time, McDonnell was building the F4H Phantom II fighter for the Navy and Marines. The design for the capsule was sort of bell-shaped, not much larger than the average phone booth; it was a twin-hulled design, with an outer shell and an inner hull comprising the single-seat cockpit, with ceramic insulation in between. The outer hull was constructed primarily of titanium, with an outer skin of nickel alloy; this alloy skin was shaped with ridges to increase surface area, which aids in dissipation of heat during the fiery re-entry phase of the flight, where the capsule's high speed would cause air friction to heat the skin to astronomical levels. The blunt bottom end of the capsule was equipped with a flat-faced, ablative heat shield. This thick layer of hard, rubber-like material was designed to actually burn away during re-entry, taking a lot of that heat with it as it went. One other side-effect of this extreme aerodynamic heating is that the air around the capsule becomes so hot that it ionizes, making communications between the capsule and the ground impossible for a few minutes, until the capsule has slowed down and the air around it cools. This phenomenon is known as an ionization blackout.

A technician cleans a newly-manufactured heat shield, which will soon be attached to a Mercury capsule. NASA Photo.

Re-entry would be initiated using a small, jettisonable package of rocket motors, known as retro rockets. These were attached to the heat shield end of the capsule with metal straps. To re-enter the atmosphere from space, the capsule would be turned around so that the retro package is facing the direction of flight, and the rockets would be fired to slow the capsule below orbital speed (about 17,500 MPH), at which time the gravitational pull of the earth and eventually atmospheric friction would drag the capsule back down. Once this process begins, the capsule is placed into the proper attitude (orientation), and the retro pack is jettisoned to smooth out the capsule's aerodynamics for re-entry. (However, on John Glenn's orbital flight, the retro package was left on, since ground controllers were concerned that the heat shield was loose.)

Mercury-Atlas 8/Sigma 7 splashes down with Wally Schirra aboard. The landing bag can be seen extended below the capsule. NASA Photo.

Once safely within the atmosphere, aerodynamic drag would slow the capsule down even further (to a vertical speed of about 300 MPH), and at a predetermined altitude, a series of parachutes would deploy to arrest the capsule's descent for a final time. An inflatable device known as a landing bag would be deployed between the heat shield and the capsule, and the capsule would slowly descend to the sea on its main parachute. The astronaut would then secure the capsule, shutting down the appropriate systems and making sure everything was squared away, whereupon he would blow the hatch and be recovered by rescue swimmers and helicopters.

Once development of the technolgy, systems, and hardware for Mercury was underway, NASA had to find men to fly it. In 1958, they started outlining qualifications. So began the search for America's "star voyagers."