Liberty Bell 7

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxv

   PDF

2. Creating a Mercury capsule

   • Colin Burgess

   Pages 1-53

3. An astronaut named Gus

   • Colin Burgess

   Pages 55-66

4. Preparing for launch

   • Colin Burgess

   Pages 67-100

5. The flight of Liberty Bell 7

   • Colin Burgess

   Pages 101-121

6. An astronaut in peril

   • Colin Burgess

   Pages 123-159

7. One program ends, another begins

   • Colin Burgess

   Pages 161-198

8. A tale of two hatches

   • Colin Burgess

   Pages 199-222

9. Epilogue: From the depths of the ocean

   • Colin Burgess

   Pages 223-244

10. Back Matter

    Pages 245-275

    PDF

NASA’s Mercury astronauts were seven highly skilled professional test pilots. Each of them seemed to possess the strength of character and commitment necessary to overcome apparently insurmountable obstacles as the United States entered into a Cold War space race with the Soviet Union. This was never more evident than on the epic suborbital MR-4 flight of Liberty Bell 7 with astronaut Virgil (‘Gus’) Grissom piloting the spacecraft to a successful splashdown, followed by the premature blowing of the craft’s explosive hatch. After a hurried exit and struggling to stay afloat, he could only watch helplessly as the recovery helicopter pilot valiantly fought a losing battle to save the sinking capsule. That day NASA not only lost a spacecraft but came perilously close to losing one of its Mercury astronauts, a decorated Korean fighter pilot from Indiana who might one day have soared to the highest goal of them all, as the first person to set foot on the Moon. For the first time, many of those closest to the flight of Liberty Bell 7 and astronaut Gus Grissom offer their stories and opinions on the dramatic events of July 21, 1961, and his later pioneering Gemini mission. They also tell of an often controversial life cut tragically and horrifically short in a launch pad fire that shocked the nation.

• Liberty Bell 7
• Mercury Astronauts
• Mercury Program
• Mercury Space Flights
• Mercury-Redstone
• Pioneers in Early Spaceflight
• Second American in Space
• Spam in Can
• US Manned Spaceflight
• Virgil (Gus) Grissom

From the book reviews:

“Burgess covers the Mercury spacecraft, astronaut Grissom’s background, the details of the flight, and Grissom’s future endeavors in the Gemini program, as well as his tragic death in the Apollo 1 fire. … The book contains many interesting photographs and appendixes, including the pilot’s report as well as a second-by-second time line of the flight. This well-written book would be a welcome addition to the collections of spaceflight enthusiasts. … Summing Up: Recommended. Academic and general space history collections.” (J. Z. Kiss, Choice, Vol. 52 (2), October, 2014)

• Bonnet Bay, Australia

  Colin Burgess

Colin Burgess’s first book, “The Diggers of Colditz” was published simultaneously in the U.K. and Australia in 1985. His next few books were on the Australian prisoner-of–war experience and then he turned his efforts to writing about his principal interest: human space exploration. Burgess has written a number of books on the subject for the University of Nebraska Press and Springer-Praxis. The books he has written or co-authored for Springer-Praxis are “NASA’s Scientist-Astronauts,” “Animals in Space,” “The First Soviet Cosmonaut Team,” and “Selecting the Mercury Seven.” Recently finished the copyediting/typesetting process is his latest book for Springer-Praxis, “Moon Bound: Choosing and Preparing NASA’s Lunar Astronauts.” In the interim he has also worked as series editor and sometimes author for the Outward Odyssey set of 12 books on the social history of space exploration for the University of Nebraska Press.

Policies and ethics