X-Nico

5 unusual facts about Project Mercury


Compressed Hare

However, neither Bugs nor Wile E. expects the magnet to attract everything else with metal properties (including, but not limited to: barbed wire, street lamps, cars, bulldozers, buses, an ocean liner, the Eiffel Tower, satellites, and, finally, a Mercury rocket trying to blast off into space) their way.

Military Highway

However, that roadway was later renamed to honor the Project Mercury space program of NASA at Langley Air Force Base.

Shalbourne

The Rehoboth Carpenter family's descendants number in the tens of thousands, among whom are two U.S. presidents and a Project Mercury astronaut.

Space nursing

Lt Dolores O'Hara and Lt Shirley Sineath were the first nurses assigned to work with the first seven Project Mercury astronauts.

USAS American Mariner

While in the Pacific Ocean, the USAS American Mariner was temporarily assigned in late September 1962 to NASA in support of NASA's Project Mercury.


Bell Aircraft

Bell also developed the Reaction Control System for the Mercury Spacecraft, the North American X-15 and the Bell Rocket Belt.

Cape Canaveral

NASA's Project Mercury and Gemini space flights were launched from Cape Canaveral, as were Apollo flights using the Saturn I and Saturn IB rockets.

James U. Cross

On February 23, 1962, Cross flew Vice-President Lyndon Johnson, Chairman of the National Space Council, to Grand Turk Island, where Colonel John Glenn had splashed down after completing the Project Mercury space expedition.

John W. Marchetti

For this effort, Marchetti, at Avco RAD, developed a 30-MHz pulsed radar that was set up at San Salvador Island to observe the ionized trail from a NASA Mercury capsule.

Larry Burkett

He spent the next several years at the Space Center in charge of an experiments test facility that served the Mercury-, Gemini-, and Apollo-manned space programs.

McDonnell Aircraft

The company was founded on July 16, 1939 by James Smith McDonnell, and was best known for its military fighters, including the F-4 Phantom II, and manned spacecraft including the Mercury capsule and Gemini capsule.

Paul C. Donnelly

Gilruth sent Donnelly to Cape Canaveral, Florida in 1959, where he served as a capsule (spacecraft) test conductor for all Project Mercury and Gemini launches.

Simon Ramo

The Atlas would go on to serve as the launch vehicle for NASA’s Project Mercury orbital flights, starting with John Glenn in Friendship 7.

What-A-Burger

U.S. Route 258, later known as Mercury Boulevard in honor of the astronauts of Project Mercury at NASA's center at nearby Langley Air Force Base, led from Fort Monroe to the James River Bridge and has been a major traffic artery in the area for many years.


see also

Mercury 7

The Mercury Seven, first class of US astronauts, seven, selected for Project Mercury, Astronaut Group 1