 The U.S. Army's most notable contribution to the early space age is probably the Redstone Missile, developed by the same team that built the V-2 during the Second World War. This is the missile that launched the first two suborbital Mercury flights, those flown by Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom in 1961. But long before there was a NASA sending men into space, the U.S. Army had its own manned spaceflight program that also used the Redstone rocket as the launch vehicle, and one of the spin-offs was using the Redstone to deliver troops to battlefields. After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in October of 1957, the U.S. military branches, the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, each developed their own manned spaceflight and unmanned spaceflight programs. They all had missiles under development, and each wanted to be the first to deliver an American into orbit. The Army's proposal was called Project Adam, a name that evoked the idea of the first man. The proposal was simple – modify a Redstone missile nose cone to carry a single man on a steep ballistic flight path. It wouldn't be an orbital mission. He would reach a peak altitude of about 150 miles before splashing down, as many miles down range from the Florida launch site in the Atlantic Ocean. Project Adam didn't stand out from the other military proposals. In fact, it was the most simplistic. Both the Air Force and the Navy had manned orbital flights as their first steps into space. But the Army argued that it was the spin-off capabilities that made Project Adam a wise choice for the nation's first spaceflight program. Experience of manned ballistic flights would be the first step towards using the Redstone as a troop transportation system. The Continental Army Command initially had very little interest in using Redstones for troop transport, but by the end of 1958 they changed their tune. In November, the Continental Army Command argued in favor of combat development for using missiles as logistical support in theaters of operation. The team behind the Redstone at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency studied Redstones as a transportation system for a year and determined that it was a perfectly viable application for the rocket. Not only could these rockets deliver troops to battlefields, they could be used to launch supplies like arms and goods with extreme precision two troops already overseas. The ABMA also found that using Redstones would save money when compared to distance flights on traditional fixed wing transport aircraft. In short, using Redstones for transportation was a sure-far way to meet the needs of the modern Army. The idea never gained serious traction. After the Continental Army Command's initial interest, support for the program waned. The only men Redstones ever transported were Shepard and Grissom, neither of whom ever served in the Army. Leave your questions and comments below and for weekly vintage space updates, don't forget to subscribe.