Activity packets for Scouts!
 To use during a Stargazing Evening or Planetarium Show.

The Mercury Program: America’s First Steps Into Space Exhibit
5.29 – 9.15, 2004

Presented by

 


Exhibit Partner

Before the Apollo program, before the Space Shuttle, there was Project Mercury. Initiated in 1958 and completed in 1963, Project Mercury was the United States’ first man-in-space program. The objectives of the program, which made six manned flights from 1961 to 1963, were very specific: to orbit a manned spacecraft around Earth; to investigate man’s ability to function in space; and to recover both man and spacecraft safely.

Mission accomplished!

From May through September of 2004, the Challenger Space Center will feature an exhibit of a full-scale replica of a Mercury Spacecraft, on loan from the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, Kansas. This high fidelity replica of the six feet by six feet Mercury spacecraft is an exact representation of what the actual Mercury spacecraft looks like.

Measuring 6′ x 6′, Mercury was the first American spacecraft to orbit the Earth.


This exhibit features:

Mercury Spacecraft (replica)
Full-scale, complete with cockpit and astronaut. The Mercury spacecraft was the first craft to take Americans into space. This high fidelity replica is an exact representation of what the actual Mercury spacecraft looks like.
Mercury Shingle (actual)
Removed from outer skin of the second Mercury Spacecraft.
Atlas Rocket Engine (actual)
F irst-stage rocket engine of the type used to launch America’s first orbital astronauts.

Blockhouse Blast Window (actual)
Removed from the Blockhouse used to launch America’s first astronauts and first satellites.
Atlas Vernier Steering Rocket Engine (actual)
Gimbaling steering engine used on the Atlas
Mercury Earth-Orbit Chart (actual)
Used to track the Mercury spacecraft in Mission Control in 1961.

Atlas Rocket Fragment (actual)
Recovered outer skin fragment from Atlas used to launch astronaut John Glenn.


©2003 Challenger Space Center • 21170 N 83rd Ave • Peoria, AZ 85382
Tel 623.322.2001 • Open M-F 9a-4p, Sat 10a-4p
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New Exhibit Now Open "My Solar System" by PlayMotion! Made possible by a grant from the Tohono O'Odham Nation