MERCURY FLIGHT

Press, Volume C, Issue 29620, 16 September 1961, Page 14

MERCURY FLIGHT

Trial For Spaceman

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) CAPE CANAVERAL, Sept. 14 Elated by yesterday’s successful orbiting of a robot “spaceman,’’ United States scientists were today planning one more trial run—possibly with a chimpanzee—before sending a human astronaut on an orbital flight later this year or early in 1962.

Yesterday’s dummy astronaut, consisting of apparatus which “breathed,” “sweated,” and “talked,” was shot aloft from Cape. Canaveral in a Mercury space capsule, powered by an Atlas rocket.

Reaching a speed of more than 17,500 miles an hour, and a height of more than 150 miles, the capsule parachuted into the sea 160 miles east of Bermuda after its one-hour, 49-minute flight around the globe. The capsule actually landed about 40 miles farther east than expected and it was an hour and 20 minutes before it was fished from the sea by a destroyer from the waiting recovery fleet. Another slight hitch was that the dummy robot consumed too much oxygen. But in spite of this, Project Mercury officials said later that a man could have survived the trip. They described the flight as a “milestone in the Mercury programme.”