Apollo 1, initially designated AS-204, was the first crewed mission of the United States Apollo program, the undertaking to land the first man on the Moon. It was planned to launch on February 21, 1967, as the first low Earth orbital test of the Apollo command and service module. The mission never flew; a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 on January 27 killed all three crew members—Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee—and destroyed the command module (CM). The name Apollo 1, chosen by the crew, was made official by NASA in their honor after the fire.
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. Taken over from the US Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency NASA, it conducted twenty uncrewed developmental flights, and six successful flights by astronauts. The program, which took its name from Roman mythology, cost $2.25 billion adjusted for inflation. The astronauts were collectively known as the "Mercury Seven", and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a "7" by its pilot.
Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom was a United States Air Force (USAF) pilot and a member of the Mercury Seven selected by National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) as Project Mercury astronauts to be the first Americans in outer space. He was a Project Gemini and an Apollo program astronaut. As a member of the NASA Astronaut Corps, Grissom was the second American to fly in space. He was also the second American to fly in space twice, beaten only by Joe Walker with his sub-orbital X-15 flights.
A space suit or spacesuit is a garment worn to keep a human alive in the harsh environment of outer space, vacuum and temperature extremes. Space suits are often worn inside spacecraft as a safety precaution in case of loss of cabin pressure, and are necessary for extravehicular activity (EVA), work done outside spacecraft. Space suits have been worn for such work in Earth orbit, on the surface of the Moon, and en route back to Earth from the Moon. Modern space suits augment the basic pressure garment with a complex system of equipment and environmental systems designed to keep the wearer comfortable, and to minimize the effort required to bend the limbs, resisting a soft pressure garment's natural tendency to stiffen against the vacuum. A self-contained oxygen supply and environmental control system is frequently employed to allow complete freedom of movement, independent of the spacecraft.
Gemini 3 was the first crewed mission in NASA's Gemini program. On March 23, 1965, astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young flew three low Earth orbits in their spacecraft, which they nicknamed Molly Brown. This was the ninth crewed US spaceflight, and the 17th world human spaceflight including eight Soviet flights. It was also the final crewed flight controlled from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station in Florida, before mission control functions were shifted to a new control center located at the newly opened Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas.
Mercury-Redstone 3, or Freedom 7, was the first United States human spaceflight, on May 5, 1961, piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard. It was the first crewed flight of Project Mercury. The project had the ultimate objective of putting an astronaut into orbit around the Earth and return him safely. Shepard's mission was a 15-minute suborbital flight with the primary objective of demonstrating his ability to withstand the high g-forces of launch and atmospheric re-entry.
Mercury-Redstone 4 was the second United States human spaceflight, on July 21, 1961. The suborbital Project Mercury flight was launched with a Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle, MRLV-8. The spacecraft, Mercury capsule #11, was nicknamed the Liberty Bell 7. It was piloted by astronaut Virgil "Gus" Grissom.
Gemini 4 was the second crewed spaceflight in NASA's Project Gemini, occurring in June 1965. It was the tenth crewed American spaceflight. Astronauts James McDivitt and Ed White circled the Earth 66 times in four days, making it the first US flight to approach the five-day flight of the Soviet Vostok 5. The highlight of the mission was the first space walk by an American, during which White floated free outside the spacecraft, tethered to it, for approximately 20 minutes.
Project Gemini was NASA's second human spaceflight program. Conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, Gemini started in 1961 and concluded in 1966. The Gemini spacecraft carried a two-astronaut crew. Ten Gemini crews and sixteen individual astronauts flew low Earth orbit (LEO) missions during 1965 and 1966.
A pressure suit is a protective suit worn by high-altitude pilots who may fly at altitudes where the air pressure is too low for an unprotected person to survive, even breathing pure oxygen at positive pressure. Such suits may be either full-pressure or partial-pressure. Partial-pressure suits work by providing mechanical counter-pressure to assist breathing at altitude.
ILC Dover, LP is an American special engineering development and manufacturing company based in Frederica, Delaware. ILC specializes in the use of high-performance flexible materials, serving the aerospace, personal protection, and pharmaceutical industries.
The Sokol space suit, also known as the Sokol IVA suit or simply the Sokol, is a type of Soviet/Russian space suit, worn by all who fly on the Soyuz spacecraft. It was introduced in 1973 and is still used as of 2020. The Sokol is described by its makers as a rescue suit and it is not capable of being used outside the spacecraft in a spacewalk or extravehicular activity. Instead, its purpose is to keep the wearer alive in the event of an accidental depressurisation of the spacecraft. In this respect, it is similar to the ACES suit that was worn aboard NASA's Space Shuttle during launch and landing.
The Advanced Crew Escape Suit (ACES), or "pumpkin suit", is a full pressure suit that Space Shuttle crews began wearing after STS-65, for the ascent and entry portions of flight. The suit is a direct descendant of the U.S. Air Force high-altitude pressure suits worn by the two-man crews of the SR-71 Blackbird, pilots of the U-2 and X-15, and Gemini pilot-astronauts, and the Launch Entry Suits (LES) worn by NASA astronauts starting on the STS-26 flight, the first flight after the Challenger disaster. The suit is manufactured by the David Clark Company of Worcester, Massachusetts. Cosmetically the suit is very similar to the LES. ACES was first used in 1994.
Strizh is a space suit that was originally developed for the crew of the Soviet/Russian Buran-class orbiters. It resembled the Sokol space suit worn by Soyuz crew members. It was designed to protect cosmonauts during a possible ejection from the spacecraft at altitudes of up to 30 km and speeds of up to Mach 3; the Buran-class orbiters were designed to incorporate ejection seats similar to those found on the Space ShuttleEnterprise and Columbia.
The Gemini space suit is a space suit worn by American astronauts for launch, in-flight activities and landing. It was designed by NASA based on the X-15 high-altitude pressure suit. All Gemini spacesuits were developed and manufactured by the David Clark Company in Worcester, Massachusetts.
The United States Astronaut Hall of Fame, located inside the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Heroes & Legends building, honors American astronauts and features the world's largest collection of their personal memorabilia, focusing on those astronauts who have been inducted into the Hall; as well as Sigma 7, the fifth manned Mercury spacecraft, and also the Gemini IX spacecraft.
Russell Sidney Colley was a U. S. mechanical engineer who played a role in creating the spacesuits worn by the Project Mercury astronauts, including fitting Alan B. Shepard Jr. for his historic ride as America's first man in space on May 5, 1961.
The Constellation Space Suit was a planned full pressure suit system that would have served as an intra-vehicular activity (IVA) and extra-vehicular activity (EVA) garment for the proposed Project Constellation flights, which were planned to begin after the Space Shuttle retired. The design of the suit was announced by NASA on June 11, 2008, and it was to be manufactured by Houston, Texas-based Oceaneering International, the first company other than the David Clark Company, Hamilton Sundstrand, and ILC Dover to produce life-support hardware, as a prime contractor, for in-flight space use.
The Launch Entry Suit (LES), known as the "pumpkin suit", is a partial-pressure suit that was worn by all Space Shuttle crews for the ascent and entry portions of flight from STS-26 (1988) to STS-65 (1994). It was completely phased out by STS-88 and replaced by the ACES suit. The suit was manufactured by the David Clark Company of Worcester, Massachusetts.
Neutral buoyancy simulation with astronauts immersed in a neutral buoyancy pool, in pressure suits, can help to prepare astronauts for the difficult task of working while outside a spacecraft in an apparently weightless environment.
