Project Mercury’s finale
Published on May 16, 2007 at 6:09 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under space exploration.
May 16, 1963, project Mercury effectively came to an end with the splashdown of the Faith 7 capsule and astronaut Gordon Cooper.
Actually, some felt that the Mercury program had sort of ended with Mercury-Atlas 8 (MA-8), Wally Schirra’s textbook flight of October 3, 1962. Certainly Gordon Cooper’s Mercury-Atlas 9 (MA-9) flight of May 15 to May 16, 1963, was of a different character. The first Mercury flights were mostly experimental and morale building. Mercury was America’s answer to Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin and his Vostok 1 flight. Mercury was America’s first manned venture into space. The first Mercury missions were unmanned. The first two manned Mercury missions were simply suborbital jaunts. The next three Mercury missions were short orbital missions, none lasting more than a few hours. But, MA-9 was to last about a day and a half. This gave time for more experiments to be performed. MA-9 was considered to be a scientific mission. Some have even though of it as a separate program all on its own.
While in orbit, Cooper performed experiments with liquids, radiation measurements, and tried to deploy a balloon to measure the amount of atmospheric drag in orbit (that experiment failed). Cooper also took photographs of Earth, including the photograph of Tibet, below. Cooper also looked out the window and carefully recorded visual observations. Some of his claims seem extraordinary, such as seeing roads and even a car on a road, and individual houses. Most experts believe that he didn’t really see such detail. Rather, we wanted to see those details, and he believed that he saw them, but it was his mind playing tricks on him letting him see what he thought that he should be seeing.
Cooper’s MA-9 flight didn’t go perfectly smoothly, though. He had to fight an unexpected buildup of carbon dioxide in the space capsule that threatened his ability to function, the success of the mission, and even his life. Furthermore, an electrical malfunction occurred in the stabilization system of the spacecraft, prohibiting an automated reentry. Cooper had to pilot the capsule back to Earth himself. Had this been an unmanned mission, the capsule would have been lost.
Mercury-Atlas 9 was the final Mercury mission. The next time that an American was to fly in space would be nearly two years later on March 23, 1965, with Virgil “Gus” Grissom and John Young on Gemini 3.
-Astroprof
Images courtesy of NASA, Wikimedia
Ed Davies on May 17, 2007 at 7:14 am: 1
“…but it was his mind playing tricks on him letting him see what he thought that he should be seeing.”
Here’s a quote from Chris Kraft’s book “Flight: My Life In Mission Control” which indicates that, though his reports of observations were not believed at the time they were later vindicated:
“He did create some controversy. Cooper looked down on the Himalayas, then the oceans, and on vast continental stretches. He could see things, he said. He saw railroad tracks and smoke from the train’s engine. He saw runway patterns at airfields. He saw the wakes of oceangoing ships and followed them until he spotted the ships themselves. He saw highways and mountain trails. The doctors didn’t belive him. Nobody’s eyes were that good, they said. Some of the military intelligence people didn’t believe him, either. How could he see such detail from more than one hundred miles out in space? Cooper insisted after the flight that he had, indeed, seen everything that he reported. It would take astronauts flying in Gemini spacecraft to settle the debate in Cooper’s favor. On a clear day, all of that and more was visible to someone who knew what to look for and took the time to study the terrain.”
Astroprof on May 17, 2007 at 1:47 pm: 2
Well, that could be, I suppose. For sure, the selection criteria for the Mercury astronauts was good eyesight. But, if the astronauts really did see such detail, then it surely must have been at the very limit of visual acuity. I tend to remain a bit skeptical, but I wasn’t there, so I obviously can’t say for sure just what they saw or didn’t see.