Mercury Friendship 7 Capsule — Handmade Metal Display Model
Mercury Friendship 7 Capsule — Handmade Metal Display Model
Model details
- Construction
- Handcrafted
- Collection
- Aviation Models - Airplanes Models
- Item no.
- AJ123
The capsule that carried John Glenn around the Earth three times, in hand-formed metal.
Handcrafted with the Mercury spacecraft's blunt conical body, corrugated shingle skin, escape-tower mounting and antenna canister.
Details
- Handcrafted metal construction
- Conical capsule with shingled surface detail
- Hatch, window and antenna canister detail
- Hand-finished surfaces
- Ready to display
The mission
On 20 February 1962 Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. Partway through, a sensor indicated the heat shield had come loose. Mission control decided to keep the spent retrorocket pack strapped over the shield through re-entry, in the hope it would hold everything in place.
Glenn watched flaming chunks of that pack fly past his window with no way of knowing whether he was seeing debris or his own heat shield. The signal turned out to be a faulty sensor. He flew again in 1998, aged 77, aboard the Space Shuttle.