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    Spaceshots and Snapshots of Projects Mercury and Gemini: A Rare Photographic History
    Spaceshots and Snapshots of Projects Mercury and Gemini: A Rare Photographic History
    Spaceshots and Snapshots of Projects Mercury and Gemini: A Rare Photographic History
    Ebook638 pages2 hours

    Spaceshots and Snapshots of Projects Mercury and Gemini: A Rare Photographic History

    By John Bisney and J. L. Pickering

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    About this ebook

    The race to space between the United States and the Soviet Union captured the popular imagination. On April 12, 1961, the USSR launched cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on a one-orbit flight, making him the first human in space. Three weeks later, American astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. flew 116 miles above Earth before splashing down in the Bahamas. Over the next twenty years astronauts emerged as national heroes.

    This book tells the story of the people and events of Projects Mercury and Gemini with hundreds of unpublished and rare photographs—both color and black-and-white. Unlike other publications, which illustrate the space race with well-known and easily accessible images, this history draws from the authors’ private library of over one hundred thousand (and growing) high-quality photos of the early US manned space program. Collected over a lifetime from public and private sources—including NASA archives, fellow collectors, retired NASA and news photographers, and auction houses—the images document American space missions of the Cold War era more comprehensively than ever before. Devoting a chapter to each flight, the authors also include detailed descriptions, providing new insight into one of America’s greatest triumphs.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of New Mexico Press
    Release dateApr 25, 2016
    ISBN9780826352637
    Spaceshots and Snapshots of Projects Mercury and Gemini: A Rare Photographic History
    Author

    John Bisney

    John Bisney is a former correspondent who covered the space program for more than thirty years for CNN, the Discovery Channel, and SiriusXM Radio, among other news outlets. He is also the coauthor, with J. L. Pickering, of Spaceshots and Snapshots of Projects Mercury and Gemini: A Rare Photographic History (UNM Press) and Moonshots and Snapshots of Project Apollo: A Rare Photographic History (UNM Press).

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    • 3/5
      As the title suggests, this is a collection of photographs from the Mercury and Gemini programmes. As glossy coffee-table books about the space programme go, it’s a good one. The photos are not the usual suspects, the accompanying text is short but informative, and it will certainly appeal to those fascinated by those two space projects. There’s a companion volume for the Apollo programme, of course.

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    Spaceshots and Snapshots of Projects Mercury and Gemini - John Bisney

    CHAPTER1

    Mercury-Redstone 3

    May 5, 1961

    On April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union stunned the world by launching cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin on a one-orbit flight with no advance notice—the first human in space. Three weeks later, the United States lofted astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. 116 miles above Earth—about as high as Gagarin, but only about 300 miles out over the Atlantic Ocean, splashing down off the Bahamas. The fifteen-minute flight put the United States in the game of manned space flight but, to the American public, also disappointingly behind. Many worried that the Soviets, locked in a Cold War with the United States, had gained a dangerous military advantage.

    Shepard’s flight—the first manned launch of Project Mercury—was aboard a Mercury spacecraft launched by NASA on a modified Redstone missile from Launch Complex 5 (LC-5) at the Cape Canaveral Missile Test Annex, a US Air Force (USAF) facility on Florida’s central Atlantic coast.

    The flight was planned for May 2, but rainy weather forced delays until May 5. Although NASA officials had selected Shepard from among three of the seven Mercury astronauts weeks earlier, his choice wasn’t disclosed until after the May 2 launch delay. More than 250 reporters from around the world were on hand, and although the hallmark of the US program—in contrast to the Soviet Union—was as open as possible, the White House was initially cautious about broadcasting the launch live in case of failure.

    The primary goals were familiarizing a man with a brief but complete space-flight experience, evaluating his ability to perform useful functions, including controlling the spacecraft, and communicating with the ground. The final objective was studying the pilot’s physiological reaction to space flight.

    Shepard could distinguish major landmasses using a periscope and make out coastlines, islands, and major lakes but had difficulty identifying cities. Lacking a window, Earth photos were taken by an automatic camera in the spacecraft’s porthole. He also briefly tested small thrusters to adjust the capsule’s position, unlike Gagarin.

    After splashdown east of the Bahamas, Shepard egressed from the main hatch. He was pulled with a sling into a helicopter, which flew both the astronaut and Freedom 7 to the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain. They were on board eleven minutes after splashdown.

    The majority of NASA photos for MR-3 were black and white since newspapers did not have the capability to publish color pictures. Magazines did, however, and Life magazine was at the forefront through an exclusive (and controversial) contract with the astronauts’ families.

    Launch: 9:34 a.m. (EST)

    Photo from automatic Earth-sky Maurer 200G sequence camera with timer image superimposed in the upper left

    Aboard ship: 10:00 a.m. (EST)

    NASA managers planned to select the first American in space from three of the seven Mercury astronauts. Left to right: Gus Grissom, John Glenn, and Shepard.

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