more at http://scitech.quickfound.net/astro/nasa_news.html "1958 NASA Langley Research Center research of re-entry water landings. These tests were early investigations into designing a re-entry capsule for later space missions. The tests were related to research in the Impacting Structures Facility, later redesigned into the Vortex Research Facility. " Public domain film from NASA, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The film was silent. I have added music created by myself using the Reaper Digital Audio Workstation and the Independence and Proteus VX VST instrument plugins. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Mercury Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States lead by its newly created space agency NASA. It ran from 1959 through 1963 with the goal of putting a human in orbit around the Earth, and doing it before the Soviet Union, as part of the early space race. It involved 7 astronauts flying a total of 6 solo trips. On 5 May 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space in a suborbital flight after the Soviet Union had put Yuri Gagarin into space and orbit one month earlier. John Glenn became the first American to reach orbit on 20 February 1962, he was the third person to do so, after soviet Gherman Titov had made a day long flight in August 1961. When the project ended in May 1963, the Americans' NASA program was still behind the Soviet Space Program, but the gap was seen as closing. The race to the Moon began. The space race started in 1957 by the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik I. This came as a shock to the American public and lead to the creation of NASA to gather the efforts in space exploration already existing in USA. After the launch of the first American satellite in 1958, manned space flight became the next goal. The spacecraft was produced by McDonnell Aircraft. It was cone shaped with room for one person together with supplies of water, food and oxygen in a pressurized cabin. It was launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida by modified military missiles, most importantly Atlas D, and had a rescue tower for protection from a failing rocket. The whole flight could be controlled from the ground through a network of tracking stations which also allowed communication with the astronaut. If necessary, the astronaut could override commands from the ground. For reentry into Earth's atmosphere, small rockets were used to bring the spacecraft out of its orbit. A heatshield would protect the spacecraft from the friction of the air and, a parachute would slow the craft for a water landing. Here both astronaut and spacecraft were picked up by helicopter and brought to a ship. From a slow start with humiliating mistakes the Mercury Project became popular and the manned flights were followed by millions on radio and TV not only in United States but around the world. Apart from the manned missions, Mercury had a total of 20 unmanned launches as a part of the development of the project. This also involved test animals, most famously the chimpanzees Ham and Enos. Mercury laid the groundwork for Project Gemini and the follow-on Apollo moon-landing program, which was announced a few weeks after the first manned flight. The astronauts went under the name Mercury Seven and they named their spacecraft with a "7" to the name. The project name was taken from Mercury, a Roman god. It is estimated to have cost $1.68 billion and have involved the work of 2 million people... The spacecraft was shaped as a cone with a neck in the narrow end. It had convex base, which was the heatshield It was composed of an aluminum honeycomb structure covered with multiple layers of fiberglass. Strapped to it was the retropack which had its name from three rockets meant to brake the spacecraft for reentry. Between these were three minor rockets for separating the spacecraft from the launch vehicle at insertion into orbit. The straps that held the package could be severed when it was no longer needed. Next to the heatshield came the pressurized crew compartment. This contained the astronaut strapped to his couch with the instruments in front of him and his back to the heatshield. Underneath the seat was the environmental control system, which supplied him with oxygen and heat. The system also cleaned the air from CO2, vapor and smell as well as (on orbital flights) collecting urine. The recovery compartment at the narrow end of the spacecraft contained three parachutes: one drogue to stabilize free fall and two main parachutes of which only one was used, the other was a reserve. Between the heatshield and the inner wall of the crew compartment there was a landing skirt which was deployed by letting down the heat shield before landing...

• published: 27 Aug 2013
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