The Beneficial Project To Science: The Mercury Mission

The Mercury Mission was a very beneficial project to science. It was named after a Roman God who was very fast. The purpose of it was to put a manned spacecraft in orbital flight around the Earth. They wanted to investigate man’s performance and capabilities as well as his ability to function in space’s environment. The last objective was to recover both the man and spacecraft safely. In order for these goals to be accomplished, guidelines were required to have a safe approach. The spacecraft was designed with a reliable launch escape system. The pilot had to be able to control the spacecraft attitude. It carried a retrorocket system along with a zero lift body utilizing drag braking. Two types of rockets were used. Both were originally
No one really knew how dangerous it was to put a human in space because no one had done it before. They conducted several test flights. On these test flights, they had three monkey astronauts named Sam, Ham, and Enos. Their flights experienced technical problems. It flew higher and faster than it was supposed do. It also went 400 miles off the course it was traveling on. In the end, all three monkeys made it home safe. They only suffered from fatigue and dehydration. The problems that occured with their flight were fixed right away. In addition to sending monkeys into space, they also sent fungus spores into space. Now that all the problems were fixed, it was time to send human beings into space to study their ability up
Everything went as planned. The only unexpected thing that happened was that one of the astronauts, Virgil Grissom, had a malfunction during his flight. On splashdown, his door flew open. He found himself in the water and was saved by a rescue helicopter. The capsule sunk in the ocean and was recovered 38 years later. Besides that, everything went as planned. The pricey cost that was spent on the mission was well worth it. All the information NASA gained made by Mercury was worth the cost. It put the first Americans into space and showed how they functioned up there. The mission taught them how to operate and build spacecraft. They used their knowledge from this to later programs. If this mission never happened, they would not have known any of these things back then. They would not have had the information from Mercury to use on the later programs. The Mercury project was a very important mission. It was the first man flown mission ever. Tons of information was gained and everyone learned a lot from it. It was very beneficial and significant to science. The astronauts that participated in it will always be remembered as “heroes.” They helped make amazing discoveries to the space