#73 NASA’s Project Mercury Monument has turned 60! It’s a tribute to America's first attempt at human space flight. The monument has a time capsule that is scheduled to stay sealed for 500 years! Let’s check out what's inside.
11/30/24 • 6 min
Project Mercury was NASA’s first attempt at human crewed space flight. It sent Alan Shepard into space, and John Glenn into orbit, among four other landmark flights over 5 years. By 1963 it was done, and NASA was ready to launch Gemini, its next project. But being such a groundbreaking project, in 1964 NASA paid tribute to Mercury with a four metre high stainless steel monument with a time capsule that would remain sealed beneath it until the year 2464, five centuries later.
What was so significant about Mercury? And what’s inside this time capsule? We could wait another 440 years, or just listen!
Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content
You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi!
We'd love to hear from you.
Email us!
Project Mercury was NASA’s first attempt at human crewed space flight. It sent Alan Shepard into space, and John Glenn into orbit, among four other landmark flights over 5 years. By 1963 it was done, and NASA was ready to launch Gemini, its next project. But being such a groundbreaking project, in 1964 NASA paid tribute to Mercury with a four metre high stainless steel monument with a time capsule that would remain sealed beneath it until the year 2464, five centuries later.
What was so significant about Mercury? And what’s inside this time capsule? We could wait another 440 years, or just listen!
Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content
You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi!
We'd love to hear from you.
Email us!
Previous Episode
#72 The space pioneers from Earth weren’t humans, what? That’s right, long before humans launched into space, there were a whole team of dogs, monkeys, chimps, insects and more, who rode rockets to space. All in the name of research.
When Yuri Gagarin blasted into orbit in 1961 to become the first human in space, he was already 14 years behind the first animals from Earth. The fruit flies that were flew to space in 1947 were just the first of many different animals in the decade and a half before Gagarin’s orbital flight that were used to test equipment and living things’ capacity to survive and work in weightlessness. There were primates, dogs, mice and rabbits that crewed orbital and suborbital test flights. And the animal parade didn’t end when humans launched themselves to space, frogs, fish, spiders, chimpanzees, a cat and of course guinea pigs all played a role in advancing the space program.
One very famous space animal has her own statue.
Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content
You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi!
We'd love to hear from you.
Email us!
Next Episode
#74 At the beginning of the space race, Project Mercury was NASA’s first human crewed spaceflight program, and it was a significant step on the road to the moon. Let’s dive into the vault and check it out.
Back in the late 1950s, NASA was formed. Its first job was to put together a human crewed spaceflight program and put an astronaut into orbit - safely. This was Project Mercury. There were some uncrewed developmental flights and then six crewed flights between 1961 and 1963, this was an enormously significant step toward the Apollo moon landings just six years later.
So who were the Mercury astronauts and what was the mission profile of these first six crewed spaceflights?
Follow Cosmic Coffee Time on X for some special content
Email us!
You can request a topic for the show! Or even just say hi!
We'd love to hear from you.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/cosmic-coffee-time-with-andrew-prestage-312716/73-nasas-project-mercury-monument-has-turned-60-its-a-tribute-to-ameri-79305486"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to #73 nasa’s project mercury monument has turned 60! it’s a tribute to america's first attempt at human space flight. the monument has a time capsule that is scheduled to stay sealed for 500 years! let’s check out what's inside. on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy