U.S. Human Spaceflight: A Record of Achievement, 1961-2006 - Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, ASTP, Space Shuttle - Monographs in Aerospace History 41 (NASA SP-2007-4541)
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), World Spaceflight News, Judith A. Rumerman, Chris Gamble, Gabriel Okolski
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U.S. Human Spaceflight: A Record of Achievement, 1961-2006
Compiled by Judith A. Rumerman * Updated by Chris Gamble and Gabriel Okolski
NASA History Division * Office of External Relations * NASA Headquarters * Washington, DC 20546
Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 41
December 2007
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SP-2007-4541
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APOLLO-SOYUZ TEST PROJECT (ASTP)
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IN MEMORIAM
Apollo 1 (27 January 1967)
Virgil I."Gus" Grissom * Roger B. Chaffee * Edward H.White II
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Challenger, STS-51L (28 January 1986)
Francis R. "Dick" Scobee * Michael J. Smith * Judith A. Resnik * Ellison S. Onizuka * Ronald E. McNair * Gregory B. Jarvis * Sharon Christa McAuliffe
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Columbia, STS-107 (1 February 2003)
Rick D. Husband * William C. McCool * Michael P. Anderson * David M. Brown * Kalpana Chawla * Laurel B. Clark * Ilan Ramon (Israel)
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PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This monograph is an updating of U. S. Human Spaceflight: A Record of Achievement, 1961-1998 (Monograph in Aerospace History No. 9, July 1998), compiled by Judith A. Rumerman. It extends the timeframe covered through the end of calendar year 2006. It also includes additional information, such as more detailed crew and mission descriptions, more bibliographic information, Shuttle payload information, and useful Web sites. It also includes a new section on the International Space Station, which did not physically exist when the previous monograph was prepared and published. In addition, with Chris Gamble's guidance, Gabriel Okolski pulled together a new set of photos to illustrate this updated monograph.
Thanks to Kipp Teague for all his help with images for this publication and over the years in general. Thanks also to the production professionals who made this monograph possible. Specifically, thanks to Dyana Weis and Lisa Jirousek for copyediting it carefully, to graphic designer Steve Bradley for laying it out, to printing specialist Dave Dixon for handling this crucial final stage, and to Gail Carter-Kane and Cindy Miller for professionally overseeing all of these production phases.
We hope you enjoy this updated monograph and find it to be a useful reference work.
Stephen Garber
NASA History Division
INTRODUCTION
More than 45 years after the Mercury astronauts made their first brief forays into the new ocean of space, Earth orbit has become a busy arena of human activity. In that time, more than 300 people have traveled into orbit on U.S. spacecraft. The first astronauts went along stuffed into capsules barely large enough for their bodies, eating squeeze-tube food and peering out at Earth through tiny portholes. Their flights lasted only a matter of hours. Today, we routinely launch seven people at a time to spend a week living, working, and exploring aboard the Space Shuttle. In addition to regular launches, crew members from various nations keep a permanent human presence aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
The history of spaceflight has seen not only an increase in the numbers of people traveling into orbit, but also marked improvements in their vehicles. Each successive spacecraft, from Mercury through Apollo and the Space Shuttle, has been larger, more comfortable, and more capable. Scientists working inside the Shuttle's Spacelab have many of the comforts of a laboratory on Earth, none of which were available when human spaceflight first began.
Some projects, like Apollo, produced stunning firsts or explored new territory. Others— notably, Skylab and the Space Shuttle—advanced our capabilities by extending the range and sophistication of human operations in space. Both kinds of activity are vital to establishing a permanent human presence off Earth.
Almost 50 years after the dawn of the age of spaceflight, we are learning not just to travel into space, but also to live and stay there. That challenge ensures that the decades to come will be just as exciting as the past decades have been.
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Project Mercury came into being on 7 October 1958, only a year and three days after the Soviet Union's Sputnik I satellite opened the Space Age. The goal of sending people into orbit and back had been discussed for many years before that, but with the initiation of the Mercury project, theory became engineering reality.
Mercury engineers had to devise a vehicle that would protect a human being from the temperature extremes, vacuum, and newly discovered radiation of space. Added to these demands was the need to keep an astronaut cool during the burning, high-speed reentry through the atmosphere. The vehicle that best fit these requirements was a wingless "capsule" designed for a ballistic reentry, with an ablative heatshield that burned off as Mercury returned to Earth.
Mercury capsules rode into space on two different kinds of boosters. The first suborbital flights were launched on Redstone rockets designed by Wernher von Braun's team in Huntsville, Alabama. For orbital flights, Mercury was placed on top of an Atlas-D, a modified ballistic missile whose steel skin was so thin (to save weight) it would have collapsed like a bag if not pressurized from within.
The first Americans to venture into space were drawn from a group of 110 military pilots chosen because they had flight-test experience and met certain physical requirements. Seven of those 110 became astronauts in April 1959. Six of the seven flew Mercury missions (Deke Slayton was removed from flight status due to a heart condition). Beginning with Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 flight, the astronauts named their own spacecraft, and all added "7" to the name to acknowledge the teamwork of their fellow astronauts.
With only 12.133 cubic meters (428.47 cubic feet) of volume, the Mercury capsule was barely big enough to include its pilot. Inside were 120 controls, 55 electrical switches, 30 fuses, and 35 mechanical levers. Before Shepard's flight, surrogate "passengers" tested the integrity of the spacecraft design: two rhesus monkeys, Ham the chimpanzee, and an electronic "crewman simulator" mannequin that could breathe in and out to test the cabin environment. Finally, in May 1961, Shepard became the first American in space. Nine months later, John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth.
The six Mercury flights (which totaled 2 days and 6 hours in space) taught the pioneers of spaceflight several important lessons. They learned not only that humans could function in space, but also that they were critical to a mission's success. Ground engineers learned the difficulty of launch preparations and found that a worldwide communications network was essential for human spaceflight.