Summer of '61 I was 8 and anxiously awaiting the launch of the second Mercury capsule, the Liberty Bell 7, into space. Astronaut Gus Grissom (possibly the most personable of all seven astronauts) was aboard for this short flight above the atmosphere (where he would look around) and then down. When Mercury space capsules came down, they would just fall 'butt first' into the air. My mother made pottery at the time and explained the heat shield as a big clay disk that melted slowly like pottery does in the kiln. Bits of this molten clay would fly off producing the 'space fireflies' that early 'nauts would observe.
A Mercury capsule's heat shield after re-entry
During re-entry, this shower of white hot blobs of glass would prevent any radio contact with the capsule and it would be falling on it's own. There were numerous signs of trouble during the launch, with countdown hold after hold. Finally the launch, and within minutes, the anticipated radio silence. Everybody waited breathlessly, knowing that this was the time that, if anything were to go wrong, it would be now. After an excruciating few minutes (was it as long as six?) Grissom made contact and landed, if not intact, safely.
The water filled Liberty Bell was too heavy for the helicopter, and sank.
Gus Grissom:
"If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." from John Barbour's Footprints on the Moon, 1969
We owe it to Lt. Col. Grissom and the other sixteen astronauts and unknown number of cosmonauts who have died inside spacecraft to continue their quest - our quest - to reach for the sky.
