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Mercury and SpaceShipOne: 40-years of Technical Evolution

The US Space program, prodded by Russia's surprise first-man-in-space success, highlights how America reacts to challenges.
Mercury and SpaceShipOne: 40-years of Evolution
Mercury capsule: Source: NASA

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By Lee Goldberg, Contributing Editor

What’s at Stake:

Technological evolution is about building on the foundations and lessons of the past. The heritage of the US Space Program is a testament to that evolution. There is great value in comparing and contrasting two groundbreaking “firsts.” Read the 3-part mission to learn more.

More than six decades ago, Alan Shepard became the first American in space aboard a Mercury capsule which was propelled into its suborbital flight by a rocket derived from the V2, a WWII-era ballistic weapon. Roughly forty years later, Mike Melvill piloted SpaceShipOne, a privately funded, air-launched, rocket-propelled vehicle to the edge of space, becoming the world’s first licensed commercial astronaut.

Although they served very different objectives and were separated by decades of technological advances, each project laid the foundations for the more advanced missions that followed. Surprisingly, Mercury and SpaceShipOne also shared several important elements that contributed to their missions’ success. In this first of a three-part series, we’ll look at both spacecraft to see how they were different and, especially, how they were similar.

Two Very Different Spacecraft – or were they?

At first glance, the Mercury capsule and SpaceShipOne appeared to have had little in common. 


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