A chimpanzee named Enos was launched on a three-orbit flight. The flight tested the worldwide communications system that linked the spacecraft to flight controllers at Cape Canaveral. It also tested the effect of weightlessness on living creatures.
A problem developed during the second orbit. One of the small thruster rockets that turned the spacecraft stopped working. Flight controllers decided to bring it down at the end of the second orbit. The landing was perfect. Enos suffered no bad effects.
SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Now, everything was ready for an astronaut to make an orbital flight. NASA announced that the astronaut would be John Glenn. He would circle the Earth three times during a five-hour Mercury flight.
The launch was planned for January twenty-seventh, nineteen sixty-two. But it was postponed for almost a month because of weather and mechanical problems. Finally, on February twentieth, John Glenn climbed into his tiny spacecraft on top of the huge Atlas rocket.
After several short delays, the final seconds were counted off.
(SOUND)
STEVE EMBER: Five minutes later, the spacecraft separated from the Atlas rocket. John Glenn was in orbit – one hundred sixty kilometers above the Earth. His speed was twenty-eight thousand kilometers an hour. Glenn reported that all systems were "go." Everything was "A-OK" for an orbital flight.
Glenn's flight plan called for him to spend most of the first orbit getting used to the feeling of being weightless. After about an hour of being beyond the pull of Earth's gravity, Glenn reported he felt fine. He said being weightless was not a problem.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25