Space Rocket History #27 – Mercury-Redstone 4 – Liberty Bell 7 with Gus Grissom
Space Rocket History Archive
English - November 26, 2017 00:49 - 43 minutes - 20 MB - ★★★★★ - 123 ratingsScience History Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Previous Episode: Space Rocket History #26 – Why the Moon?
Next Episode: Space Rocket History #28 – Vostok 2 With Gherman Titov
Mercury-Redstone 4 was the fourth mission in the Mercury-Redstone series and the second U.S. manned suborbital spaceflight. The mission was essentially a repeat of Alan Shepard’s Freedom 7 flight. So why was it necessary to launch another sub-orbital mission? Why not proceed with an orbital flight to match the Soviet Vostok 1? Among other things the U.S. needed more space experience to corroborate the “Man-in-Space” concept. Also the Redstone was the only booster NASA had that was approved for manned launches. The Atlas booster was available but not ready. Atlas was capable of putting a Mercury Capsule into orbit, but it had been launched three times with unmanned capsules, and it had exploded on 2 of the 3 attempts.