As any space buff knows, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth in February 1962, when he piloted the Friendship 7 spacecraft on a 3 -orbit mission.
Fifty years later, a group called “Americans in Orbit – 50 Years” plans to celebrate with a repeat of that historic flight. They intend to build [...]

I’m trying something new here, to mix things up. Whaddaya think?

When Alan Shepard was launched into space aboard Freedom 7 in 1961, he was (briefly) one of the most famous men on the planet.

Shepard grounded
Next year, when John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth, Shepard became less visible. And, due to a medical condition affecting his inner ear—and his balance—he was grounded. [...]

The behavior of the orbit of Mercury provided support for Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Today, people still continue to study the nearest planet to the sun—sometimes with space probes.

Storms on the planet
The Mercury Messenger has been whipping around the planet. And, it’s discovered that the the planet has dust storms whipping across it. This [...]

During the Mercury space program, the astronuts didn’t like having their spaceflights delayed while chimps got to fly first. And, they really resented the notion that their missions could have been completed by chimps.
Nonetheless, Mercury veteran Scott Carpenter (one of only two surviving Mercury astronauts) and Bob Crippen—who flew on the first shuttle mission—visited a [...]

When the shuttle fails, astronauts are in big trouble. There’s no way to get away from a failing vehicle and safely return to the earth. The shuttle MUST not fail for astronauts to survive.
Earlier escape systems
Apollo was different. Apollo had an abort system that could carry astronauts away from an exploding Saturn rocket…albeit on a [...]

Gordon Cooper’s Faith 7 flight in 1963 marked the first time an American astronaut spent a day in space. But Gordo enjoyed a second, lesser-known accomplishment during that mission: He launched a satellite, the first ever launched from a manned spacecraft.
The satellite was very tiny—an globe only 6 inches in diameter. The micro-satellite was equipped [...]

Even the casual space buff knows about the National Air & Space Museum. And, with some luck, you’ve probably been to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Johnson Space Center in Houston—or both.
But America is filled with fine, and sometimes flukey, space places.
1. Tommy Bartlett’s Exploratory.

I don’t really know much about Tommy Bartlett, but [...]