“‘So close, yet so far,’ sighs Cape” was the subheading to the lead article in the Huntsville Times on Wednesday April 12, 1961, announcing the flight of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin as he became the first person in space.
This disappointed quote reflected NASA’s dashed hopes that the United States might take the lead in the Cold War Space Race of the 1960s. They’d come so close to launching the world’s first space traveler, but had delayed a potential astronaut launch in March 1961 in favor of one final uncrewed test of the Mercury-Redstone system.
Initiated in October 1958, just six days after NASA formally came into existence, Project Mercury was the agency’s human spaceflight program. Taking its name from the messenger of the gods in Roman mythology, the aim of the Mercury program was to demonstrate that it was possible to put a human into Earth orbit and return them safely, as well as investigating how well people could function in the weightless environment of space. Project Mercury aimed to achieve this feat before the Soviet Union, placing America ahead in the nascent-but-rapidly-heating Space Race with the USSR.
The seven members of the Mercury astronaut team, selected through a rigorous process of physical and psychological testing from 110 active-duty military test pilots, were introduced to the public in April 1959. When Walter M. Schirra Jr., Donald K. Slayton, John H. Glenn Jr., and M. Scott Carpenter, Alan B. Shepard Jr., Virgil I. Grissom, and L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. donned their now-iconic spacesuits, they entered the annals of history, as seen in this 1960 group portrait.
Known as the Mercury Seven, the astronauts quickly became national celebrities through ample media promotion, portrayed as Cold War “knights in shining armor” in their silvery spacesuits, squaring up to contest with Communism for the heavens.
The first Mercury spaceflights would be sub-orbital, following a ballistic trajectory that entered the space environment but did not put the astronaut in orbit, and utilized a variant of the Redstone Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile, designed at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. The sub-orbital missions would be followed by orbital flights launched using the more powerful Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, which was still under development as Mercury commenced.
The spacecraft and launch vehicle intended for the first human spaceflight arrived at Cape Canaveral in December 1960, with the historic mission scheduled for a tentative date in early March.
In January, astronaut Alan Shepard was nominated as the pilot of the MR-3 (Mercury-Redstone-3) mission, with John Glenn and “Gus” Grissom as back-ups. The names of all three astronauts were publicly released in February, although it was not specified which of them would become the first person in space if all went to plan.
As pilot, Shepard named his spacecraft Freedom 7, referencing the model number of the capsule (McDonnell Model #7), not the Mercury 7 astronauts as is commonly believed. The other astronauts liked the symbolism of the 7 and continued using the number when naming other spacecrafts in the Mercury program.
Preparations for the MR-3 launch were delayed by technical issues with both the spacecraft and launch vehicle. In addition, the January 31 MR-2 all-up test flight of the Mercury-Redstone system, carrying Ham the astrochimp experienced several problems with the booster rocket, and a cautious NASA (not wanting a failure during the publicly-televised launch) decided on one final flight test of the launch vehicle. It was slated for March 28, pushing MR-3 back into late April.
Unfortunately for Shepard (and the United States), the delay to the MR-3 launch cost him the chance to become the world’s first space traveler when the Soviet Union launched cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit on April 12. The USSR not only claimed the prize of the first human in space, but they also earned the prestige of placing the first person in orbit.
After various technical and weather delays, May 5, 1961, was finally set for the MR-3 launch. US Navy Lt. Commander Alan Shepard became the first American in space when the Redstone rocket soared aloft from Cape Canaveral at 9:34 a.m. ET. The launch was broadcast live to an estimated US television audience of 45 million.
During the short flight, Shepard experienced about five minutes of weightlessness. He showed that he was able to function without impairment and could control the Mercury capsule manually. Shepard was able to distinguish major geographical features from space with the naked eye and also took photographs during the flight.
After reaching an altitude of 116 miles, Freedom 7’s sub-orbital flight splashed down 304 miles downrange in the Atlantic Ocean just 15 minutes and 22 seconds after launch. Shepard was quickly recovered and immediately hailed as a national hero.
Stung by the USSR once again beating the United States to a historic space achievement, President Kennedy addressed Congress on May 25, just three weeks after Shepard’s flight, and committed his country to “achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.” This set in motion the Apollo program, resulting in the Apollo 11 mission that would achieve the first successful human mission to the moon in July 1969, effectively winning the Space Race for the United States.
Shepard’s backups, Grissom and Glenn respectively, flew the next two missions: the sub-orbital MR-4 and the orbital MA-6, which was also the first crewed Mercury-Atlas flight. As the first American to orbit the Earth, Marine Colonel John Glenn finally enabled NASA to equal that Soviet achievement, but Glenn’s fame also eclipsed that of Alan Shepard, who found himself grounded in 1963 due to a medical condition.
After acting for six years as NASA’s Chief of the Astronaut Office, Shepard returned to flight status in 1969. He became the commander of the 1971 Apollo 14 mission, the only one of the Mercury astronauts to land on the moon.
The Mercury flights of Shepard and Grissom were both sub-orbital trajectories, each
launch being more of a Bezos-style carnival ride than a spaceflight, which was nevertheless impressive in 1961 although not so much today. Gagarin was launched into orbit, which would have been more or less permanent had he not used thrusters to alter course and safely return, and this is what made him a true space traveler, unlike Shepard, Grissom and Bezos. America’s first true space traveler was John Glenn, making three orbits in Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962.
I watched all of the Mercury and Gemini launches on television, even if they were on school days when I would feign illness to stay home.
as a child, I got the privilege of sitting inside Faith 7, Gordon Cooper’s Mercury capsule in 1963, when I accompanied my father to work where John Kennedy was giving a speech (different world then, even at a high security government base, we could go in)
I too watched all that I could of the launches and was totally facilitated with it all. i remember my dad bringing home specs and maps and all sorts of things for me, that would probably be awesome today to still have but never thought much about it back then.
we need that awe again