The Mercury Program
This report is going to be based on the NASA Mercury Program. The primary goals of this report is to explain the mission and purpose of the program, to give you an overview of the program, to explain the spacecraft used in the program, and to give flight summaries.
Beginning in 1958 and culminating in 1963, Project Mercury was the United States first man-in-space program. The objectives of the program, which made six manned flights from 1961 to 1963, were clear: To orbit a manned spacecraft around Earth, to investigate mans ability to function in space, and to recover both man and spacecraft safely. These goals and objectives were successfully completed.
The true beginning of the effort that would in turn be manned space travel cannot be exactly pinpointed. History tells us that it has been in the minds of people since the beginning of recorded history. One might think that is was in the mind of the first people, but with numerous, strict, guidelines space flight was made a reality in 1961 when Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr. rose into space on the first manned space flight in U.S. history. Although the flight only lasted fifteen (15) minutes and twenty-eight
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