mr03/merprog_v_bw_o_n (ca. 1961, orig. unnumbered McDonnell Aircraft Corp. photo, M-183C eq)
“Artist drawing of the Mercury spacecraft, Freedom 7 showing the escape tower and retro rockets. The Project Mercury spacecraft was designed, developed and built by the McDonnell Aircraft Corp. in collaboration with NASA’s Space Task Group. The capsule has a height of nine feet and a seventy-four inch width at the base. Its weight is approximately one ton. The basic structural materials and titanium, beryllium, and nickel-base alloys. The escape tower is composed of a 14-foot tubular system attached to the top of the capsule by explosive bolts. Three retrorockets enclosed in a housing on the blunt end of the capsule, are designed to provide reverse propulsion and slow the capsule in orbit by about 500 feet per second speed so that it will drop out of orbit.”
Above per the NASA-appropriated (photo no. M-183C, dated August 1961) version of the image.
By extension/extrapolation of other McDonnell Aircraft Corporation artist’s concepts of the time, possibly by Mr. Arnold Pierce. Maybe not, but I think worth putting out there. And if it’s not, who’s going to care/contradict, right?
Cool:
www.collectspace.com/news/news-050521a-shepard-freedom-7-...
Credit: collectSPACE website
See also. A great website that I thought was no longer maintained. I'm glad I was wrong:
www.spaceline.org/united-states-manned-space-flight/mercu...
Credit: Cliff Lethbridge/Spaceline Inc. website
mr03/merprog_v_bw_o_n (ca. 1961, orig. unnumbered McDonnell Aircraft Corp. photo, M-183C eq)
“Artist drawing of the Mercury spacecraft, Freedom 7 showing the escape tower and retro rockets. The Project Mercury spacecraft was designed, developed and built by the McDonnell Aircraft Corp. in collaboration with NASA’s Space Task Group. The capsule has a height of nine feet and a seventy-four inch width at the base. Its weight is approximately one ton. The basic structural materials and titanium, beryllium, and nickel-base alloys. The escape tower is composed of a 14-foot tubular system attached to the top of the capsule by explosive bolts. Three retrorockets enclosed in a housing on the blunt end of the capsule, are designed to provide reverse propulsion and slow the capsule in orbit by about 500 feet per second speed so that it will drop out of orbit.”
Above per the NASA-appropriated (photo no. M-183C, dated August 1961) version of the image.
By extension/extrapolation of other McDonnell Aircraft Corporation artist’s concepts of the time, possibly by Mr. Arnold Pierce. Maybe not, but I think worth putting out there. And if it’s not, who’s going to care/contradict, right?
Cool:
www.collectspace.com/news/news-050521a-shepard-freedom-7-...
Credit: collectSPACE website
See also. A great website that I thought was no longer maintained. I'm glad I was wrong:
www.spaceline.org/united-states-manned-space-flight/mercu...
Credit: Cliff Lethbridge/Spaceline Inc. website