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3 A Brief History of Space Flight
new enterprise, space exploration confronted an array of difficult scientific and technical problems, such as developing rockets that could carry machines and humans
into space, learning about the space environment and taking the first steps toward
human exploration. Under Glennan’s leadership, the NASA made advances in all of
these areas, among which the greatest public excitement came with his formation of
the first human exploration effort, Project Mercury. At the same time, with the first
selection of Mercury astronauts in 1959, public fascination in space reached a fever
pitch. The scientific objectives of Project Mercury were to place a manned spacecraft
in orbital flight around the Earth, investigate man’s performance capabilities and his
ability to function in the environment of space and recover the man and the spacecraft
safely.
In order to speed up the Project Mercury, “Space Task Group” was soon formed at
the NASA’s Langley Research Center. The Group was headed by Robert R. Gilruth,
chief of the Langley Research Center and Manager of the Project Mercury, and
consisted of 33 members, including Maxime A. Faget, Paul E. Purser, Charles J.
Donlan, Alfred J. Eggers, James A. Chamberlin, Raymond L. Zavasky and George M.
Low, etc. On the selection of launch vehicles, the Space Task Group decided to choose
four types of rockets: one is the nicknamed Little Joe rocket specially designed by
Faget and Purser, a four-cluster, solid-fuel booster, which is used for the quick escapeoff and life-saving in case of an emergency at launching the spacecrafts; the other is
the Redstone rocket, which is used for the flight test of the spacecraft ascending and
descending along the trajectory or orbit; the third is the Jupiter A rocket, which is
used for the tests of reentry and recovery of the spacecraft’s prototypes; the fourth is
the Atlas rocket, which is used for launching manned spacecraft into orbit.
The design, construction and testing of the Mercury Spacecraft were undertaken
by McDonnell Aircraft Corporation. The Mercury Spacecraft was designed as a coneshaped capsule with a cylinder mounted on the top, which has a total length of 8.5 m
(including the escape tower of 5.8 m), a diameter of 1.9 m at the arc-shaped bottom
and a weight of around 1.6 metric tons. A small solid rocket with three nozzles was
mounted on the top of the escape tower, which could generate a thrust of 24,000 kgf
in one second. Consequently, in case of emergency, the Spacecraft would rapidly be
separated from the rocket to ensure the life safety of astronauts. The flight tests of
Project Mercury were implemented in three stages as follows.
The first stage was to verify the technology and design from August 1959 to
April 1961. In order to verify the performance of the escape and life-saving system
of the Mercury Spacecraft, the launch tests of eight Little Joe (LJ) rockets and one
Big Joe (BJ) rocket had been carried out successively. However, except for two
successful tests of LJ-2 and LJ-1B, there were various technical failures without
exception for the other seven tests, and the expected test goals had not been achieved.
For all that, there had been a deep understanding of the impact of weightlessness
and overload on animals, the spacecraft recovering, the spacecraft’s splash-down
on the sea, as well as the design of escape and life-saving system. Moreover, the
flight test data also provided a reference basis for the further optimal design. In the
meantime, the combinations with the Mercury vehicles and the Redstone rockets
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
new enterprise, space exploration confronted an array of difficult scientific and technical problems, such as developing rockets that could carry machines and humans
into space, learning about the space environment and taking the first steps toward
human exploration. Under Glennan’s leadership, the NASA made advances in all of
these areas, among which the greatest public excitement came with his formation of
the first human exploration effort, Project Mercury. At the same time, with the first
selection of Mercury astronauts in 1959, public fascination in space reached a fever
pitch. The scientific objectives of Project Mercury were to place a manned spacecraft
in orbital flight around the Earth, investigate man’s performance capabilities and his
ability to function in the environment of space and recover the man and the spacecraft
safely.
In order to speed up the Project Mercury, “Space Task Group” was soon formed at
the NASA’s Langley Research Center. The Group was headed by Robert R. Gilruth,
chief of the Langley Research Center and Manager of the Project Mercury, and
consisted of 33 members, including Maxime A. Faget, Paul E. Purser, Charles J.
Donlan, Alfred J. Eggers, James A. Chamberlin, Raymond L. Zavasky and George M.
Low, etc. On the selection of launch vehicles, the Space Task Group decided to choose
four types of rockets: one is the nicknamed Little Joe rocket specially designed by
Faget and Purser, a four-cluster, solid-fuel booster, which is used for the quick escapeoff and life-saving in case of an emergency at launching the spacecrafts; the other is
the Redstone rocket, which is used for the flight test of the spacecraft ascending and
descending along the trajectory or orbit; the third is the Jupiter A rocket, which is
used for the tests of reentry and recovery of the spacecraft’s prototypes; the fourth is
the Atlas rocket, which is used for launching manned spacecraft into orbit.
The design, construction and testing of the Mercury Spacecraft were undertaken
by McDonnell Aircraft Corporation. The Mercury Spacecraft was designed as a coneshaped capsule with a cylinder mounted on the top, which has a total length of 8.5 m
(including the escape tower of 5.8 m), a diameter of 1.9 m at the arc-shaped bottom
and a weight of around 1.6 metric tons. A small solid rocket with three nozzles was
mounted on the top of the escape tower, which could generate a thrust of 24,000 kgf
in one second. Consequently, in case of emergency, the Spacecraft would rapidly be
separated from the rocket to ensure the life safety of astronauts. The flight tests of
Project Mercury were implemented in three stages as follows.
The first stage was to verify the technology and design from August 1959 to
April 1961. In order to verify the performance of the escape and life-saving system
of the Mercury Spacecraft, the launch tests of eight Little Joe (LJ) rockets and one
Big Joe (BJ) rocket had been carried out successively. However, except for two
successful tests of LJ-2 and LJ-1B, there were various technical failures without
exception for the other seven tests, and the expected test goals had not been achieved.
For all that, there had been a deep understanding of the impact of weightlessness
and overload on animals, the spacecraft recovering, the spacecraft’s splash-down
on the sea, as well as the design of escape and life-saving system. Moreover, the
flight test data also provided a reference basis for the further optimal design. In the
meantime, the combinations with the Mercury vehicles and the Redstone rockets