The Spokesman-Review

'The Clock Has Started:' Alan Shepard and the Mercury missions

Those were the words Alan Shepard used 60 years ago Wednesday to note his cockpit timepiece had begun running. This meant his Redstone rocket booster had left the ground sending him and his one-man ...
insider.si.edu

Project Mercury Astronaut Photograph [Burchfield]

CC0 Usage Conditions ApplyClick for more information. Project Mercury was the United States' first human spaceflight program. Delmas D. "Del" Burchfield (1926-2016) was an engineer at McDonnell ...
Electronic Design

Project Mercury and SpaceShipOne: Two Different Missions that Shaped the Space Race (Part 1)

Although NASA’s Project Mercury and SpaceShipOne served very different objectives, a closer look reveals that both missions were powered by equal parts of competition, innovation, and a strong dose of ...
Time

Astronaut Scott Carpenter Is Dead at 88

Scott Carpenter, one of two remaining astronauts from NASA’s Mercury program and the second American to orbit the earth, died Wednesday at the age of 88. His family did not specify a cause of death, ...
Electronic Design

Project Mercury and SpaceShipOne: Two Different Missions that Shaped the Space Race (Part 2)

Part 2 explores the dramatically different approaches to the launch systems, and the surprising similarities in the factors that contributed to their success. Although they served very different ...