This test capsule was part of Project Mercury, America’s first manned spacecraft program. Engineers had to devise a vehicle that would protect a human being from temperature extremes, vacuum, the newly discovered radiation of space, and high-speed reentry through the atmosphere. The best vehicle for these requirements was a wingless capsule designed for ballistic reentry, with an ablative heat shield that burned off as Mercury returned to Earth. The original seven Mercury astronauts and NASA’s Space Task Group were based at nearby Langley Research Center from 1959 to 1963. The lifting ring at the top of this capsule indicates that it was probably used for helicopter recovery training.
