Talk:Mercury-Redstone 4

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Launch time[edit]

I can only find a launch time of 12:20 UTC -no seconds listed and so put landing at 15 min 37 sec. past that. Rmhermen 15:42, Nov 26, 2003 (UTC)

I found something saying it was exactly on the minute, but it was like such for Mercury 5 and Mercury 3 as well (especially when it seemed to have a conflicting time for Mercury 5), so I removed the exact time. I suppose it's fine as it is. -- Pipian

On the REFERENCE list near the bottom of the Wikipedia Mercury 4 webpage is a reference manual link called - "Results Of The Second U.S. Manned Suborbital Spaceflight July 21, 1961 (NASA)". PDF Page 33 (manual page 31) of this reference lists MR-3 launch time as 9:34:13 e.s.t. and MR-4 launch time as 7:20:36 e.s.t. Rusty 20:12, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

"Mrs. Grissom was not invited to the White House as per the forming tradition with previous astronaut wives upon successful mission completion." Wasn't there only one astronaut (and hence only one wife) who had completed a successful mission at this stage (Shepherd in Mercury 3)? -R. fiend 17:58, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hence "forming tradition"? Didn't NASA have a SOP worked up? (Everything else did...).

For what it's worth, didn't LB7 fly atop a Redstone IV? Trekphiler 11:42, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Omission[edit]

I don't see the name of the recovery ship, CV-15 Randolph, or the helo unit that attempted the pickup of Liberty Bell 7. Can somebody confirm & include? Trekphiler 01:31, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I can confirm from This New Ocean that the recovery ship was Randolph. I haven't been able to identify any of the destroyers or the recovery squadron. There were (at least) two Marine helicopters, side-numbers 30 and 32 and tail code ET(?), and one Navy helicopter, side-number 52 and tail code unclear, if those mean anything.

For MR-3, the helicopter group was MAG-26 - this used a different carrier, Lake Champlain, but they're described as "a veteran recovery unit" and it's possible they were embarked on whichever carrier was used. Certainly one of the crewmembers involved had been in the Shepard rescue. Shimgray | talk | 23:38, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jim Lewis, the helicopter pilot who cut Liberty Bell 7 loose, was from HMR(L) 261, based at New River, North Carolina. The other ships involved in the recovery effort were the USS Conway (DDE 607), USS Cony (DDE 508), and the USS Lowry (DD770), as well as a tracking ship called "Atlantic Ship," stationed somewhere along the flight path. Source: C. Newport 69.138.184.13 01:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the help. Sn30 matches with the film I've seen, & Lowry sounds familiar. I'd still raise Q if this should be included. Comment? Trekphiler 22:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed Move[edit]

I have proposed that all Mercury missions are re-named. This will affect this page. So they can be discussed together on one page, I've set up a subpage of my user talk page for discussion of the moves. --GW_Simulations_{|User Page | Talk | Contribs | E-mail} 20:38, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Explosive Device[edit]

"After Liberty Bell 7 was secured in the deck of the recovery ship, experts removed and disposed of an explosive device that was supposed to detonate in the event of the capsule's sinking but which failed to explode." The explosive device was called a SOFAR bomb, Sound Fixing and Rangeing, made by the Bermite Corporation in Santa Clarita, CA. The device was a one pound (net explosive weight) barometrically fired signaling device meant to alert recovery vessels in the area through their sonar. The SOFAR bomb would arm as it sank through approximately 3,500 feet of sea water, and fire at approximatelly 4,000 feet. There were two on the capsul: one in a pocket on the main parachute risers and one behind the instrument bulkhead. The one on the parachute risers would be ejected as the parachute deployed, fall to the ocean surface, sink, arm and detonate thus alerting the recovery ships through their sonar on what bearing the capsul would soon land. The second SOFAR bomb was intended to detonate if the capsul sank giving an indication where it sank and destroying the instrument bulkhead thus insuring it sank so no unfriendly nation could recover it.

Source: I am the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Technician who was on the recovery ship and found and disposed of the second dud SOFAR bomb in the recovered capsul. See the Discovery Channel documentary.

Tedious writing style[edit]

Has this been written by a 10 year old ?

No, a NASA historian... 68.39.174.238 11:40, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Location of capsule?[edit]

The caption of the photo of Liberty Bell 7 says it is at KSC. It is actually at the Kansas location, isn't it? Bubba73 ^{(You talkin' to me?)}, 20:57, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ownership of spacecrafts[edit]

I would recheck the sentence "Liberty Bell 7 is the only flown American spacecraft owned by a museum other than the National Air and Space Museum." in the paragraph "Recovery of Liberty 7". I do not know the ownership claims exactly, but the California ScienCenter could be another museum owning a flown American spacecraft, which is Space Shuttle Endeavour. The sentence might be obsolete now. 85.180.58.156 (talk) 16:12, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Suit and cabin temperature[edit]

Ninety-seven degrees Fahrenheit is nearly body temperature. Fifty-seven degrees would be perceived as a chilly room. Modern space suits are cooled (sometimes with a water-cooled undergarment) because the suit can get uncomfortable after a long period of wear. My guess is the original figures were right, with the cooler temperature inside the suit. But we shouldn't have to guess; we need to find a citation, perhaps in This New Ocean. JustinTime55 (talk) 15:35, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

57 sounds right, given the amout of body head an astronaut would generate, plus the heat from the elecronics. After all, that's on the pad, not in flight. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 16:21, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is moot; we have an even bigger problem. The numbers as given, in flight, are correct (i.e. 57.5 suit, 97 cabin); in fact, several sections have been directly copy-pasted from This New Ocean (!) JustinTime55 (talk) 16:29, 26 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps what was meant was that the cooling fluid to the suit was at 57 degrees, not that the "inside of the suit" right next to the body was 57.73.81.159.141 (talk) 06:26, 29 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

57 degrees F. inside the entire spacesuit would have been felt as very cold an uncomfortable, indeed. The astronaut would have been shivering at that temperature!24.156.77.8 (talk) 18:39, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Contradiction[edit]

It's not clear to me how sliced off does not contradict pulled asunder. Could you explain your reasoning here please? --catslash (talk) 21:46, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sheared doesn't necessarily mean sliced; the This New Ocean source actually says: "When a mild detonating fuse, placed in a groove around each bolt, was energized, the bolts were sheared simultaneously and the hatch sprang open." There was not enough explosive to fragment the bolts (which was not the intent); it simply cracks and separates at one point, as if it had been "sliced off". The phrase "sheared off" is commonly used (at least in the USA) to describe bolts that fail like this. (I'm sorry if usage is different in the UK.) (Even though, from an engineering standpoint, the term isn't precisely correct, because the bolts fail from tensile (axial) stress, while the term "shear" refers to stress applied crosswise (as in slicing off).) "Sheared" is terminology commonly understood in the semitechnical, lay public, while "pulled apart" is inaccurate. JustinTime55 (talk) 13:20, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Correct!24.156.77.8 (talk) 18:41, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Purpose of the mission[edit]

What was the purpose of this mission? Was its purpose different from that of MR-4? Were they just getting more experience doing the same thing?CountMacula (talk) 01:56, 9 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

According to the NASA's press kit, the reason was to gain more experience and test some of the spaceship modifications. see here. --Golan's mom (talk) 10:55, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified (January 2018)[edit]

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Mission Names[edit]

I remember watching this flight as a ten year old on a TV set up in a classroom, as I had the first Mercury flight. Not ever in my life have I heard or read Liberty Bell 7 refereed to as Spacecraft #11. Who does anybody think would be searching "spacecraft #11", not "liberty Bell 7? What propose does it serve? Why confuse people? Jackhammer111 (talk) 04:36, 25 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree: All of this nonsense about #11 is nothing but confusing the situation. #11 was merely a manufacturing number assigned by McDonnell Aircraft for use inside of its factory in suburban St. Louis, and that number is meaningless everywhere else.24.156.77.8 (talk) 18:47, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]