Jennifer Henry
02, November 2012
Mrs. Al NASA was created after the russian's launched Sputnik which brought about the space race. We needed to get ahead of Russian's because of the possibility of them using the rockets and attaching a nuclear weapon on it. There were three Projects that were created; Mercury. Gemini. and Apollo. The mission of project mercury was to get a man into orbit and back to earth safely, to recover both man and the spacecraft safely home and look into man's ability to function in space. The duration of this project was 1959-1963. Alan Shepard was the first one who was in space, he was in the Freedom 7 which made the first american suborbital flight into space. The rest of the astronauts that came after him was Virgil Grissom, for MR-4 which was the second suborbital but the spacecraft sank before recovery when the hatch had blown off. John Glenn for MR-6 was the first american to orbit the Earth 3 times. Scott Carpenter for the MA-7 which did another 3 orbits. Walter Schirra for the Mission Atlas 8 which he carried out engineering tests and had orbit 6 times. L. Cooper Gordon Jr. for the Mission Atlas 9 which he was the first american in space for over a day and the last american astronaut to be launched by their selves into Earth orbit and He did 22 orbits. They had unmanned missions. LJ-1 was a test launch escape system during flight, Big Joe 1 was a test of heat shield and Atlas and spaceship interference. LJ-6 was a test of spacecraft aerodynamics and integrity. LJ-1A was a test of launch escape system during flight. LJ-2 had carried Sam, a rhesus macaque up to 85 kilo in altitude. LJ-1B had carried Miss Sam to 9.3 statute miles in altitude. Beach Abort was a test of the off the pad abort system. MA-1 was the first flight of Mercury/Atlas. LJ-5 was the first flight of a production Mercury spacecraft. MR-1 was launched 4 inches and then settled back down on the pad due to electrical malfunction. MR-1A was the first flight of Mercury and Redstone. MR-2 had carried the chimpanzee Ham on the suborbital fight.MA-2 was an unmanned test. LJ5A was the test of the launch escape system during the most severe conditions of a launch.MR-BD was the Redstone development test flight. MA-3 had a robot astronaut.LJ-5B was the another test done during the most severe conditions of a launch. MA-4 was another unmanned test. MS-1 was a test of Mercury tracking networking. MA-5 had carried Enos the chimpanzee during a two orbit flight. The Gemini Project was the second human spaceflight program To test the endurance of man in prolonged exposure to the environment of space and to attach one spacecraft with another spacecraft.The duration of this project was 1962-1966. There were 12 Gemini Missions, Gemini I-XI. There were 3 astronaut groups. Group one consisted of L. Gordon Cooper, Virgil Grissom, Walter Schirr, The second group consisted of Neil Armstrong, Frank Borman, Charles Conrad, James Lovell, James McDivitt, Thomas Stafford, Edward White II, and John Young. Group three consisted of Edwin Aldrin, Eugene Cerman, Michael Collins, Richard Gordon, and David R. Scott. The main objective of these missions were to achieve mission to the Moon and back, working outside of a spacecraft, and orbital maneuvers as needed to achieve docking and attaching to another spacecraft. Gemini 1 was used as a test flight. Gemini 2 was a suborbital flight to test heat shield. Gemini III was the first manned flight and orbited the Earth 3 times. Gemini IV had the first american extravehicular activity and Mr. White had a space walk with exercise which lasted 22 minutes. Gemini V was the first week long flight, the first one to use fuel cells for electrical power, had 120 orbits and was used to evaluate guidance and the navigation system for future rendezvous missions. Gemini VII was used for rendezvous.Gemini VI-A the first rendezvous accomplished with Gemini VII. Gemini VIII was the first to accomplish docking with another space