Mercury and SpaceShipOne: The Spacecraft
By Lee Goldberg
What’s at Stake:
In the beginning, US efforts in Space were largely driven by militaristic goals and the belief in US exceptionalism. Later, while those motivations still existed, the pioneer spirit and entrepreneurialism pushed further development.
In late 1958, the U.S. government’s fear of falling behind the Russians drove NASA to impose an ambitious schedule on the Mercury program that included the production of the capsules that would be used for the first crewed flight on May 5, 1961, and five subsequent missions, as well as several engineering prototypes.
Designed and integrated by McDonnell Aircraft, the vehicles’ compact structure provided just enough room to shoehorn in an astronaut and their space suit, along with the minimum complement of life support, communication, propulsion, and guidance systems needed to support brief forays into space.
Mercury’s aluminum and titanium structure was sheathed in panels made of Rene 41, a heat-resistant nickel-based alloy. The capsule was equipped with small hydrogen peroxide-powered thrusters that could orient the craft while in orbit and three solid-fuel retrorockets which could be fired to slow the craft down enough to fall towards Earth. The cone-shaped vehicle would reenter the atmosphere leading with its blunt circular base, protected by an ablative heat shield that used the same principles and technologies originally developed to enable ballistic nuclear warheads to survive the fiery conditions they would encounter on the way to their targets. Mercury’s nose contained three parachutes which would deploy after entering the lower atmosphere, further slowing the craft to make a relatively soft water landing where it would be plucked from the ocean by helicopters and delivered to a nearby ship.
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