Launch of Mercury-Redstone 3 (Freedom 7)

The launch of Mercury-Redstone 3 (Freedom 7). Onboard is astronaut Alan Shepard on the first American manned spaceflight (sub-orbital) - May 5th 1961

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• MR-3
• Mercury
• redstone
• 1961
• suborbital
• astronaut
• alan
• shepard
• nasa
• launch
• freedom

[Luisvaldez989]

This flight is very WIERD. The Redstone booster separated from the vehicle less than 4 minutes after liftoff, and there was NO second stage. In contrast, flights to LEO and beyond take 9 minutes or more.

[lunarmodule5]

@Luisvaldez989 the mission would have been weird if it hadn't been designed to fly like this. The Mercury-Redstone flights were sub-orbital. The maximum speed attained on this flight was 5,143mph and the maximum height attained was 116 miles. Shepard splashed down 302 miles east of the Cape 15 minutes after liftoff. Hope that helps.

[joshatkins94]

Good quality, thanks for uploading.

[YDDES]

Before Gagarins flight, USA had planned to let all 7 Mercury astronauts make a Redstone suborbital flight before starting with Atlas orbital flights.

[FlyingPiper13]

When I was little, I liked the Mercury-Redstone 3 because it had nice stripes on it. =)

[observer9670]

@freakshowproductionz The Atlas rocket wasn't yet cleared for manned space flight. And the Redstone wasn't capable for launching a capsule into orbit. It would be another year before NASA felt confident enough in the Atlas to place a manned capsule on top of it.

[noonedude101]

@44feathers

It is smaller geometrically - so the reduced weight and decreased aerodynamic stress probably plays a role

[44feathers]

it seems as though the Redstone rocket - though less powerful than other rockets including Atlas - gets to the stratosphere extremely fast. Might this be true?

[ChrisPenta]

50 years ago this morning!!!

[MrBennetzen]

The diffeerence between Alan Shepard's and Yuri Gagarin's flights are that Alan Shepard's flight was done in the full view of the media including Walter Cronkite and Yuri Gagarin's flight was done in secret and announced after he landed safely.

[frenchie16000]

@freakshowproductionz This flight was planned long before Gagarin's. Remember, the soviets kept their space flights secret until after they succeeded so that nobody ever heard about any failures. In fact, Shepard could have gone into space before Gagarin, but there were doubts about safety so a monkey was sent first instead. Shortly thereafter Gagarin's orbital flight succeeded.

[freakshowproductionz]

@lunarmodule5 tru dat. I don't understand why the US would have done a suborbital flight after Yuri Gagarin had already done and orbital flight, though.