Joseph loves Astronomy, and they have been talking about Project Mercury Atlas 5 and its crew, the chimpanzee Enos, that was launched into space on a day like today in 1961.
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963.
An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. Taken over from the US Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency NASA, it conducted 20 uncrewed developmental flights (some using animals), and six successful flights by astronauts. The program, which took its name from Roman mythology, cost $2.27 billion (adjusted for inflation). The astronauts were collectively known as the Mercury Seven, and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a 7 by its pilot.
The Space Race began with the 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1. This came as a shock to the American public, and led to the creation of NASA to expedite existing US space exploration efforts, and place most of them under civilian control.
After the successful launch of the Explorer 1 satellite in 1958, crewed spaceflight became the next goal. The Soviet Union put the first human, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, into a single orbit aboard Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961.
Shortly after this, on May 5, the US launched its first astronaut, Alan Shepard, on a suborbital flight. Soviet Gherman Titov followed with a day-long orbital flight in August 1961. The US reached its orbital goal on February 20, 1962, when John Glenn made three orbits around the Earth. When Mercury ended in May 1963, both nations had sent six people into space, but the Soviets led the US in total time spent in space.
The Mercury space capsule was produced by McDonnell Aircraft, and carried supplies of water, food and oxygen for about one day in a pressurized cabin.
Mercury flights were launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, on launch vehicles modified from the Redstone and Atlas D missiles.
The capsule was fitted with a launch escape rocket to carry it safely away from the launch vehicle in case of a failure. The flight was designed to be controlled from the ground via the Manned Space Flight Network, a system of tracking and communications stations; back-up controls were outfitted on board.
Small retrorockets were used to bring the spacecraft out of its orbit, after which an ablative heat shield protected it from the heat of atmospheric reentry. Finally, a parachute slowed the craft for a water landing. Both astronaut and capsule were recovered by helicopters deployed from a US Navy ship.
The Mercury project gained popularity, and its missions were followed by millions on radio and TV around the world. Its success laid the groundwork for Project Gemini, which carried two astronauts in each capsule and perfected space docking manoeuvres essential for crewed lunar landings in the subsequent Apollo program, announced a few weeks after the first crewed Mercury flight.
More information: NASA
Mercury-Atlas 5 was an American spaceflight of the Mercury program. It was launched on November 29, 1961, with Enos, a chimpanzee, aboard.
The craft orbited the Earth twice and splashed down about 320 km south of Bermuda, and Enos became the first primate from the United States and the third great ape to orbit the Earth.
By November 1961, the Soviet Union had launched Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov into orbit during the Vostok 1 and Vostok 2 manned orbital flights, while the United States had managed only suborbital ones.
At that time, NASA was still debating placing a chimpanzee in orbit as part of the Mercury-Atlas subprogram, with NASA headquarters questioning the wisdom of the Manned Spacecraft Center launching another unmanned Mercury mission.
The NASA Public Affairs Office issued a press release prior to the flight, stating, The men in charge of Project Mercury have insisted on orbiting the chimpanzee as a necessary preliminary checkout of the entire Mercury program before risking a human astronaut.
More information: The Hindu
Enos (died November 4, 1962) was the second chimpanzee launched into space by NASA. He was the first and only chimpanzee, and third hominid after cosmonauts Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov, to achieve Earth orbit. Enos's flight occurred on November 29, 1961.
Enos was brought from the Miami Rare Bird Farm on April 3, 1960. He completed more than 1,250 training hours at the University of Kentucky and Holloman Air Force Base. Training was more intense for him than for his predecessor Ham, who had become the first great ape in space in January 1961, because Enos was exposed to weightlessness for longer periods of time. His training included psychomotor instruction and aircraft flights.
Enos was selected for his Project Mercury flight only three days before launch. Two months prior, NASA launched Mercury-Atlas
4 on September 13, 1961, to conduct an identical mission with a crewman simulator on board. Enos flew into space aboard Mercury-Atlas 5
on November 29, 1961. He completed his first orbit in 1 hour and 28.5
minutes.
Enos was scheduled to complete three orbits, but the mission was aborted after two due to two issues: capsule overheating and a malfunctioning avoidance conditioning test subjecting the primate to 76 electrical shocks.
The capsule was brought aboard USS Stormes in the late afternoon, and Enos was immediately taken below deck by his Air Force handlers. Stormes arrived in Bermuda the next day.
Enos's flight was a full dress rehearsal for the next Mercury launch on February 20, 1962, which would make John Glenn the first American to orbit Earth, after astronauts Alan Shepard, Jr. and Gus Grissom's successful suborbital space flights.
The spacecraft and Enos were both found to have survived the mission in good condition, although the chimpanzee had removed all the medical electrodes and the urine collection device from his body.
On November 4, 1962, Enos died of shigellosis-related dysentery, which was resistant to then-known antibiotics. He was constantly observed for two months before his death. Pathologists reported no symptoms that could be attributed or related to his previous space flight. Many believe Enos's remains were dissected like Ham, who was extensively studied postmortem at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
Some of Ham's remains, minus the skeleton (which remained with AIP), were buried at the International Space Hall of Fame in New Mexico. Later attempts by space scholars to locate Enos's remains were unsuccessful.
A post-mortem study was undertaken. His remains were then packed and sent to the Smithsonian Institution according to James E. Cook, a veterinary pathologist who was involved in Enos's autopsy and was also the Head of the Chimp Consortium at Holloman AFB at the time of Enos's death.
More information: The Atlantic
One of the things that always appealed to me about Nasa
was we were always doing cool stuff that no-one's done before.
Mark Rober
No comments:
Post a Comment