Project Mercury

The previous post covered the tragedy of Apollo 1, where Gus Grissom died. The above photo is from launch pad 5/6 where Grissom made his first suborbital flight. The Redstone rocket is real, but the capsule on top is a mock-up. Two manned Mercury missions were launched from here, Alan Shepard's and Gus Grissom's (Mercury-Redstone 3 and 4, respectively). John Glenn's later orbital flight, as well as the rest of the manned Mercury flights, took off from pad 14. Pad 5/6 and pad 14 are both historical sites now.

Grissom's capsule, Liberty Bell 7 sank when the explosive hatch triggered prematurely. It was recovered in 1999. My family and I went to see the restored Liberty Bell 7 earlier this year.

Wikipedia has a very thorough article on the Mercury program here.

Incidentally, Grissom did have a successful flight in Gemini 3 (he named the capsule "The Unsinkable Molly Brown). But even that flight was marred when the two Astronauts were reprimanded for having smuggled a corned beef sandwich on board the craft. The crumbs released could have wreaked havoc in the capsule.

I think Gus Grissom was probably the most unlucky of the original 7 Astronauts. Regardless, he was still a hero. Who else would willingly strap a rocket onto their back?