GiGi checked the manifest twice — the payload bay is still empty.
Unlock the Vault to get up to −10% off
Members get access to exclusive drops & special discounts
Unlock
Browse by mission, era, or program
Drag to spin
Fueling up…
The machine behind the mission
America's first ride to space: a modified Army Redstone missile with a one-seat capsule on top. Up past the edge of space and back down to the Atlantic in about 15 minutes — the flights that started it all on the Space Coast.
Mercury asked the question that started everything: can a human survive in space? Six crewed flights answered — one seat, one window, a repurposed missile. In 1961 the first American reached space; a year later, one circled the Earth.
Our Mercury collection honors the courage of first steps — the blunt-body capsule still guides every spacecraft flying today. The impossible is merely difficult.
The whole flight on one arc: 116 miles up, 302 miles downrange, five minutes of weightlessness.
Flight plan for the MR-3 manned flight
Why he lay on his back. Taken through the chest, a man can take 11 g and keep reading instruments.
The astronaut couch
One man on his back, the periscope between his knees, pure oxygen at a third of sea-level pressure.
Internal arrangement
One month after Freedom 7, the doctors, engineers and the pilot himself stood up in the State Department auditorium and said what they had learned. This is their file: the flight plan, the spacecraft, the sensors taped to Alan Shepard, and what his body did for fifteen minutes and twenty-two seconds.
The whole flight on one arc, the way Chris Kraft drew it for the conference. Liftoff 9:34 a.m. EST, May 5, 1961. Fifteen minutes and twenty-two seconds later Freedom 7 was in the Atlantic, 302 miles downrange.
Source: Conference on Medical Results of the First U.S. Manned Suborbital Space Flight, NASA / NIH / NAS, June 6, 1961.
Up from the Cape, over the Bahamas, down in the Atlantic. The computer at cutoff predicted the landing point within three miles of where the helicopters found the capsule - and the carrier Lake Champlain was already waiting.
Source: Conference on Medical Results of the First U.S. Manned Suborbital Space Flight, NASA / NIH / NAS, June 6, 1961.
NASA screened 110 elite test pilots and chose seven — the Mercury Seven became celebrities before a single one had flown.
The capsule was so snug astronauts joked you didn't board it, you put it on — every switch within arm's reach.
A small rocket rode atop every Mercury capsule, ready to pull the astronaut clear of an exploding booster in under a second.
The whole stack above the booster: escape rocket and tower on top, the capsule with its antenna canister and recovery compartment, the shingled afterbody, the heat shield and the retropack strapped to its face.
Source: Conference on Medical Results of the First U.S. Manned Suborbital Space Flight, NASA / NIH / NAS, June 6, 1961.
The pilot lay on his back on a couch moulded to his body, facing the instrument panel, with the periscope between his knees. "You don't get in it," the astronauts said, "you put it on."
Source: Conference on Medical Results of the First U.S. Manned Suborbital Space Flight, NASA / NIH / NAS, June 6, 1961.
Everything Shepard could see from the couch. Flight instruments across the top, the periscope screen in the middle, sequence lights to tell him what the automatic systems had done - and the handles to do it himself if they had not.
Source: Conference on Medical Results of the First U.S. Manned Suborbital Space Flight, NASA / NIH / NAS, June 6, 1961.
Every Mercury flight that carried a living passenger, in order. Durations are hours:minutes.
| Flight | Date | Crew | Duration | Event |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MR-2 | 31 Jan 1961 | Ham (chimpanzee) | 00:17 | Proved the capsule and the ride; Ham worked his levers at 17 g |
| MR-3 | 5 May 1961 | Alan B. Shepard, Jr. | 00:15 | Freedom 7 - first American in space; this report |
| MR-4 | 21 Jul 1961 | Virgil I. Grissom | 00:16 | Liberty Bell 7 - hatch blew early; the capsule sank, Grissom swam |
| MA-5 | 29 Nov 1961 | Enos (chimpanzee) | 03:21 | Two orbits - cleared the Atlas for a man |
| MA-6 | 20 Feb 1962 | John H. Glenn, Jr. | 04:55 | Friendship 7 - first American in orbit, three times around |
| MA-7 | 24 May 1962 | M. Scott Carpenter | 04:56 | Aurora 7 - three orbits; landed 250 miles long |
| MA-8 | 3 Oct 1962 | Walter M. Schirra, Jr. | 09:13 | Sigma 7 - six orbits, a textbook flight |
| MA-9 | 15 - 16 May 1963 | L. Gordon Cooper, Jr. | 34:20 | Faith 7 - 22 orbits, flew re-entry by hand after the autopilot failed |
MR = Mercury-Redstone, suborbital. MA = Mercury-Atlas, orbital. Ham and Enos were chimpanzees from Holloman AFB.
Why he lay on his back. With the acceleration coming through the chest, a man can take 11 g and keep reading instruments. Under the couch sat crushable aluminum honeycomb, the last line of defence if the landing was hard.
Source: Conference on Medical Results of the First U.S. Manned Suborbital Space Flight, NASA / NIH / NAS, June 6, 1961.
The Mercury pressure suit was a Navy high-altitude suit in silver. Oxygen came in at the waist, ran down the arms and legs through channels in the lining, and left at the helmet - carrying heat and sweat with it.
Source: Conference on Medical Results of the First U.S. Manned Suborbital Space Flight, NASA / NIH / NAS, June 6, 1961.
Table I - launch morning, May 5, 1961, Eastern Standard Time
Tick off the morning the way the flight surgeon did. Every item below is from the schedule in the conference papers.
Tap a box to check it off
Negative. Not in this report.
