Qualla: Mercury-Redstone 4

Mercury-Redstone 4: Introduction

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Slammer111 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Gus Grissom painted a crack on his spacecraft. He had named the capsule Liberty Bell 7, and to complete the resemblance to its Philadelphia namesake, he added a white irregular stripe running diagonally from the base toward the nose - a painted fracture on an unbroken ship. After splashdown on July 21, 1961, when the explosive hatch blew without warning and the Atlantic rushed in, the irony was not lost on anyone. Liberty Bell 7 sank in 16,000 feet of water. Grissom, his spacesuit filling through an open oxygen inlet, thrashed in the waves while a helicopter struggled to keep him from going down with it. He survived. His spacecraft did not - at least not for another 38 years.

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Image: Slammer111 at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Mercury-Redstone 4: The Second Man's Burden

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. Being second is its own kind of test. Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 flight eleven weeks earlier had absorbed the nation's anxiety and adulation; by the time Grissom launched, the novelty had diminished just enough to shift the emphasis from spectacle to performance. Mercury-Redstone 4...

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Image: NASA | Public domain

Mercury-Redstone 4: Fifteen Minutes Over the Atlantic

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. Liberty Bell 7 launched at 12:20 UTC on July 21, 1961, after three weather delays that had tested Grissom's patience. On the morning of the fourth attempt, a pad technician discovered a misaligned hatch bolt. Engineers decided that 69 of 70 bolts would suffice. The bolt was left ...

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Image: NASA | Public domain

Mercury-Redstone 4: The Hatch That No One Blew

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. Everything worked until it didn't. After splashdown, Grissom lay in the bobbing capsule, running through his post-landing checklist while waiting for helicopter recovery. He armed the rescue aids, removed his helmet neck dam, disconnected his oxygen hose. He had not yet removed t...

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Image: NASA | Public domain

Mercury-Redstone 4: Raised from the Deep

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. The floor held it for 38 years. After failed attempts in 1992 and 1993, a team led by salvage expert Curt Newport and financed by the Discovery Channel raised Liberty Bell 7 on July 20, 1999 - the 30th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and one day short of the 38th anniv...

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Image: NASA | Public domain