Alan Shepard – Project Mercury Freedom 7
I was pondering yesterday’s flight of SpaceShipOne, and decided to lookup the information surrounding the first American sub-orbital flights. Alan Shepard – Project Mercury Freedom 7 has most of the details. It’s interesting to compare the two flight profiles: Shepard pulls something over six g’s on ascent, and hits 11 on descent, whereas SpaceShipOne pulled about five on ascent, and just coasted down with very little excessive g-loading. The Mercury capsule required explosive bolts, parachutes, and a water landing. SpaceShipOne coasted to a stop on an ordinary runway, and allowed Melvill to wave to the crowd even before he stopped rolling. And of course, the Mercury Freedom 7 required a pressure suit, apparently without appropriate accomadation for urination…
Oh, and here are some plans for a paper model of the Mercury Redstone rocket.
I suspect the world would be better if that percentage were even greater.
Apparently 15% of all web traffic is cat related. There's no reason for Brainwagon be any different.
Thanks Mal! I'm trying to reclaim the time that I was using doom scrolling and writing pointless political diatribes on…
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Congrats, glad to hear all is well.