The Explorers' Club Special

Operation AXIOM: The Space Race—The 60th Anniversary of Mercury-Atlas 7
24 May 1962: Mercury 7 lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, carrying Scott Carpenter aboard the Mercury capsule Aurora 7 atop an Atlas rocket; the three-orbit flight plan was packed with scientific experiements & Carpenter couldn't stay on schedule; the Aurora 7 splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles off target, & was recovered by the U.S.S. Intrepid.

Wayback Machine: № DCCCXVIII, "The Space Race—The 59th Anniversary of Mercury-Atlas 7"

Commentary: In the days of Project Mercury, the art & science of how to conduct a manned spaceflight was being worked out in real time. After all, no man had flown in space prior to April 1961. For all the problems encountered during Mercury-Atlas 7—problems with constantly revising the flight plan, astronaut training, experiment sequencing, & astronaut performance—many valuable lessons were learned that would help ensure the success of Projects Gemini & Apollo & meet President Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon & returning him safely to Earth by the decade's end.

Semper exploro.