Ah, project Mercury – the United States “Man In Space” program. Sure, it wasn’t the first to put a man in space, or in orbit (The Soviets would do that with Vostok 1 in 1961) but it was still a necessary step towards what we eventually would accomplish.
Of course, anything going into space needs a rocket system to put it up there, and in the case of orbital Mercury missions, the Atlas ICBM was chosen, mainly since it was the only thing we had at the time with the lifting power to do the job! Of course you want a reliable machine, but when a human life is at stake, you want the most reliable of reliable parts.
In this short film, intended for Convair employees who would make the components for the Atlas launch vehicles used in Project Mercury, we see the attention to detail placed on the functionality and quality of every single component – rocket engines, transistors, the steel making up the booster itself (which was paper-thin and very fragile) and more, it all just had to work, and work it did.
This isn’t the most exciting film, but I feel it shows just what was needed, if only a slice, behind the scenes to make Mercury happen.
Enjoy!