The Complete Book of Spaceflight: From Apollo 1 to Zero Gravity

276 Mercury-Atlas
pilots to take the initial round of exams. The 13 who
passed were Jerrie Cobb, Myrtle “K” Cagle, the twin sisters
Jan and Marion Dietrich, Wally Funk, Jane Hart,
Jean Hixson, Gene Nora Jessen, Irene Leverton, Sarah
Gorelick Ratley, Bernice “B” Steadman, Jerri Sloan
Truhill, and Rhea Allison Woltman, with Funk and
Cobb being outstanding. Whereas the male candidates
were tested in a sensory deprivation tank for only three
hours, Funk floated for more than ten. She also endured
a 5g centrifuge ride even though regulations prevented
her from borrowing a regulation anti-g suit; she simply
wore a full-length “merry widow” girdle borrowed from
her mother instead. Lovelace concluded that Funk and
Cobb, in particular, “would have made excellent astronauts,”
but their further testing and potential selection
was stymied by bureaucracy and sexism. Cobb and Jane
Hart lobbied for support, and thanks in part to Hart’s
husband, Senator Philip Hart of Michigan, a congressional
hearing on official astronaut qualifications was set
for July 1962. Cobb and Hart argued their own case,
whereas NASA presented its views through agency
administrators and the astronauts Scott Carpenter and
John Glenn. Cobb began by saying, “We seek only a
place in our nation’s space future without discrimination.”
However, discrimination was evident from the
outset when the committee chairman, the Republican
Victor Anfuso of New York, replied in his opening
remarks: “Miss Cobb, that was an excellent statement. I
think that we can safely say at this time that the whole
purpose of space exploration is to someday colonize
these other planets, and I don’t see how we can do that
without women.” Glenn did not help by arguing “that
women are not in this field is a fact of our social order”
and that women would need to be superior to be considered
for astronaut selection: “If we could find any
women that demonstrated they have better qualifications
than men, we would welcome them with open
arms.” On Day 3 the hearings were canceled, and Congress
ruled that future astronauts must come from the
ranks of military jet test pilots. Since no women were
allowed to train as test pilots until a decade later, the policy
effectively slammed the door on the spaceflight
ambitions of the Mercury Thirteen. However, the group
was not forgotten. When, in July 1999, Eileen Collins
became the first woman to command a Space Shuttle
mission, she made sure that the Mercury Thirteen were
included on the guest list for her launch.
Mercury-Atlas
An Atlas D missile adapted to carry a manned Mercury
capsule. The engine thrusts were identical to those of the
operational Atlas D, with only the flight profile altered to
carry the Mercury capsule into orbit and certain safety
features introduced to protect the astronauts.
Total length: 29.0 m
Core diameter: 3.1 m
Liftoff mass: 116,100 kg
Payload to 185-km low Earth orbit: 1,360 kg
Total thrust
Boosters (2): 1,600,000 N each
Sustainer: 280,000 N
Verniers (2): 8,800 N each
Mercury-ELINT
Fourth-generation U.S. Air Force ELINT (electronic
intelligence) satellites, introduced in the late 1990s and
designed to pick up a wide spectrum of electromagnetic
energy for use in broadband monitoring. Unlike most
other ELINT satellites, which operate in geosynchronous
orbits, Mercurys are placed in even higher orbits and
move in complex, elliptical patterns. This not only gives
them wider coverage but also allows them to take bearings
on a given transmitter and thus accurately pinpoint
its location.
Mercury-Redstone
A modified version of the Redstone used in NASA’s initial
effort to launch astronauts into space. In most
respects, the Mercury-Redstone was similar to its missile
relative. In fact, the vehicle was selected for the Mercury
program because of its proven track record of safety
and reliability. The Mercury-Redstone did incorporate
added safety features as well as an upgraded Rocketdyne
engine. About 800 engineering changes were made to
the production version of the Redstone to qualify it as a
manned space-launch vehicle. These included extending
the fuel tank about 2 m to increase the burn time and
thus achieve increased speed and altitude. Alan Shepard,
the first American astronaut in space, was launched
aboard a Mercury-Redstone from Cape Canaveral Launch
Pad 5 on May 5, 1961, on mission MR-3. A nearly
identical flight, designated MR-4, carried Virgil Grissom
on July 21, 1961. Mercury-Redstone mission performance
in support of suborbital manned flights MR-3
and MR-4 was so successful that two similar flights,
which would have been designated MR-5 and MR-6,
were canceled.
Length: 25.5 m
Diameter: 1.8 m
Thrust: 348,000 N