Project Mercury

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commanders Walter M. Schirra, Jr., and Alan B.
Shepard, Jr. Of these, all flew in Project Mercury except Deke Slayton who was
grounded for medical reasons. He later became an American crewmember of the
Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
The Mercury module was a bell shaped craft. Its base measured exactly
74.5 inches wide and it was nine feet tall. For its boosters NASA chose two U.S.
military rockets: the Army’s Redstone, which provided 78,000 pounds of thrust,
was used for suborbital flights, and the Air Force Atlas, providing 360,000
pounds of thrust, was used for orbital fights. The Mercury craft was fastened
to the top of the booster for launch. Upon reaching the limits of Earth’s
atmosphere the boosters were released from the module, and fell into uninhabited
ocean.
The first Mercury launch was performed on May 5, 1961. The ship,
Freedom 7, was the first U.S. craft used for manned space flight. Astronaut
Alan Shepard, Jr. remained in suborbital flight for 15 minutes ...

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