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[i]It was a homecoming of sorts: It's back in St. Louis, where it was built by McDonnell Douglas along with the other 19 capsules. Since then, the capsule, built in 1962, has done stints in Houston's Johnson Space Center, in a Swiss museum, and at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. Gregg E. Maryniak, director of the McDonnell Planetarium, said the arrival of the Mercury capsule is another opportunity to showcase St. Louis' special place in aeronautics history, and the importance of space technology today. "We have cell phones and PDAs because of space technology so space technology has a larger impact on us today than in 1962," Maryniak said.[/i]
Mercury capsule #19 was one of twenty spacecraft built for the first American human spaceflight project, which aimed to put a man in orbit. Sent to the launch site, Cape Canaveral, on March 20, 1962, it became the back-up spacecraft for the Mercury-Atlas flight (MA-8) of Walter M. Schirra, who made 6 orbits of the Earth on October 3, 1962. Thereafter the mission for #19 was canceled and parts were used on other Mercury projects. In early 1968, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center) gave this vehicle to the Smithsonian.
[i]Mercury capsule #19 was [URL=http://web.mac.com/jimgerard/AFGAS/pages/mercury/mc-19.html]previously on display[/URL] at the Swiss Museum of Transport & Communication in Lucerne, Switzerland.[/i] Photo: Smithsonian
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