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  Mercury spacecraft 'noseart': then and now

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Author Topic:   Mercury spacecraft 'noseart': then and now
FFrench
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From: San Diego
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posted 07-18-2007 10:14 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for FFrench     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I'm trying to track down photographs of the "Aurora 7" artwork that appeared on Scott Carpenter's Mercury spacecraft. So far the great majority of images I have seen are in black and white. The only two color images I have been able to find are this one and another one on this page.

Of course, there is also artist Cece Bibby's reproduction of the artwork in later years.

Does anyone know of/could post any other images? I'm not just limiting it to photos taken pre-flight — any post-flight images of the artwork, right up to the present day if the panel with the artwork is still on the spacecraft (which is in Chicago now, I believe?) would be good to see.

The couple of photos I can find online of the spacecraft in Chicago do not show the correct side of the spacecraft, and it's apparently hard to see if it is still there, according to some online visitor accounts. Is this a case where, like Sigma 7's artwork, it is no longer on the spacecraft?

Any help with color images much appreciated — thanks!

Lou Chinal
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posted 07-19-2007 01:14 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Lou Chinal   Click Here to Email Lou Chinal     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
It is my understanding the Sigma 7 artwork was removed soon after the flight. I don't recall seeing any photos of the area below the window post-flight. Who removed it and why I don't know.

space1
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posted 07-19-2007 08:13 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for space1   Click Here to Email space1     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I was in Chicago last week and photographed Aurora 7. The photo I have showing the area below the window is unfortunately at a very oblique angle, but I cannot make out any markings whatsoever.

FFrench
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posted 07-19-2007 11:33 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for FFrench     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I heard anecdotally (and I am trying to recall who told me; it was probably a conversation with Cece Bibby and Wally Schirra at one of the get-togethers) that the Sigma 7 artwork was removed and is now lost / location unknown.

The implication was that someone stole it. I hope that is not also the case with Aurora 7, but John's report does not sound promising in that regard.

Robert Pearlman
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posted 07-19-2007 11:38 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Jim Gerard's A Field Guide to American Spacecraft notes about each:
  • Aurora 7 - "I looked for the Aurora 7 emblem which was painted under the window (on top) but was unable to see anything."

  • Sigma 7 - "The outer skin plate has been removed below the window: that held the painted 'Sigma 7' insignia."

KC Stoever
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posted 07-19-2007 03:15 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for KC Stoever   Click Here to Email KC Stoever     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The color question is in to the pilot of Aurora 7 too, traveling today.

About the Mercury capsule in Chicago. Almost all the paint (and color) burned off during reentry — you could see just ghosts of the artwork color postflight.

This happened to Cece's art for Friendship 7. She tried more heat-resistant paints with Aurora 7. This paint too mostly burned off.

At Chicago they might be able to do some sort of microscopic analysis to determine the color of the 7. But simple visual inspection will tell you little if anything, as far as I know.

But I do think a couple of things militate in favor of the original being a marine blue. The images on the Mercury spacecraft wiki site are very persuasive, for one. I am a huge fan of this site.

Second, I recall reading a Cece Bibby oral history (which I cannot find now) in which she recalls that Carpenter's choice of "Aurora" (quite evocative and popular in the West) was greeted as a propaganda opportunity in the Soviet Union because of the role played by the Russian cruiser Aurora in the October Revolution of 1917 (I believe the Aurora fired on the Winter Palace).

Carpenter had in mind more classical allusions, like this. And celestial ones too.

Anyhoo: this, um, untoward and rather silly development in Soviet cold war propaganda annals was greeted with little glee at NASA. Officials were therefore pleased to see the beautiful blue "7" — and not the dreaded commie red — in Cece Bibby's final color choices. This anyway is what I recall from Cece's first-person remarks, which I read somewhere.

We are looking high and low, incidentally, for "vector" images of the Aurora 7 logo Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator or .eps file. We would be most grateful for any help!

FFrench
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posted 07-19-2007 03:16 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for FFrench     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by KC Stoever:
Almost all the paint (and color) burned off during reentry — you could see just ghosts of the artwork color postflight.
Here's a postflight image I just came across, as compared to preflight.

quote:
This happened to Cece's art for Friendship 7. She tried more heat-resistant paints with Aurora 7. This paint too mostly burned off.
There's a nice story on Cece's site about this.
I suggested a test on Scotty's flight. I obtained paint from my friend's company and someone got paint from the other two companies. I divided up the letters in Aurora... used one kind of paint on AU, another on RO and the third on RA. I have a photo taken after re-entry and a couple of the paints held up better than the other but I have no idea which... too long ago. You could tell they had been exposed to extreme heat.

space1
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posted 07-19-2007 06:19 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for space1   Click Here to Email space1     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I had mentioned I did not have a good view of the insignia area, but here are three lousy views. It appears that the original shingle has been removed. Notice that the shingle in photo 2 underlaps the shingle to its left (at top of photo), while in the postflight photo (see Francis' link above) it overlaps. All of the "markings" in these photos are just dust on the plastic cover or discoloration of the shingle from reentry.

FFrench
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posted 07-19-2007 10:53 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for FFrench     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks John, for that detective work.

I'm wondering if someone else out there knows the story of the Aurora 7 and Sigma 7 plate removals. It would appear that both are missing from their respective spacecraft, presumably location unknown, and that means of the three spacecraft Cece Bibby painted, only Friendship 7 retains its original artwork.

mercsim
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posted 07-20-2007 01:49 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mercsim   Click Here to Email mercsim     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Here is a photo I took. If you look closely at the small riveted panel just above the J20 mark, you can see some obvious differences from the photos on Cece's site referenced by Francis.

The wear marks and little missing corner are good tells this is NOT the original panel. You can almost see the rivet spacing is not right either. Also Cece's photo shows the white main mark outlining the service ports very visible and there is no evidence of that here either.

The capsules were disassembled and washed when they came back from flight. Mark shows some scenes of this in Spacecraft Films. It's not hard to imagine the capsules then getting neglected for a while while NASA and the contractors were buys getting other vehicles and programs going.

One could also imagine technicians grabbing parts from around the shop to re-assemble a capsule for display or a tour. It wouldn't be hard to imagine some boss or manager looking at that panel and thinking how cool it would be on his wall and just having it replaced with one off the shelf, maybe from a test capsule.

They just didn't seem to have the historic sense we do today of preserving artifacts exactly as they were. The Gallery link on my page is the full resolution one if any one wants it.

Larry McGlynn
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posted 07-20-2007 02:11 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Larry McGlynn   Click Here to Email Larry McGlynn     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
According to Cece, Scott gave her the name and she drew the design based on the Aurora Borealis. She designed the circles with jagged edges to denote electrical nature of the aurora in the sky.

I talked with Scott and Cece about the design. Scott said the design conveyed what he was looking to achieve as his mission logo.

Cece did try an experiment with different paints. The only lettering that survived was the two A's.

Cece and I visited the Astronaut Hall of Fame in April 2005. We went to see Wally's capsule and the Sigma 7 insignia. We were greatly disappointed to see that the shingle where Cece had painted the insignia had been replaced with a piece of plexiglass.

Now to hear that Scott's capsule no longer has his unique insignia is a disappointment.

space1
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posted 07-21-2007 12:35 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for space1   Click Here to Email space1     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
What intrigues me about this Aurora 7 shingle is that it has the same discoloration from reentry as the neighboring shingles. It isn't as if a new shingle were put in place of the flown shingle.

I think the inspection crews were too careful to install a shingle incorrectly, or in the wrong place. This looks a bit more officially deliberate to me. It makes me wonder if the shingle we seek is being preserved somewhere. A mystery indeed.

FFrench
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posted 07-22-2007 04:57 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for FFrench     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
John, I share your hope that it was preserved, however from what I heard about Sigma 7's "missing" panel, it's sadly likely that someone took this one too.

Unless the remaining traces of paint on this, and the surrounding shingles the paint make it on to, were overcleaned as part of the post-flight process? That seems unlikely too, as the other paint markings on the spacecraft survived.

I discussed this conversation and your photo with Carpenter yesterday, and he has no personal knowledge. He'd assumed the artwork was still on the spacecraft, and was quite saddened to hear that's not the case.

FFrench
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posted 07-22-2007 08:17 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for FFrench     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by robsouth:
I am sure that Faith, Friendship and Faith 7 still have their names on from recent photos I have seen.
Here's a closeup I took of the Friendship 7 artwork about three years ago on a visit to DC.

mikej
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posted 07-22-2007 09:11 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for mikej   Click Here to Email mikej     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I've seen the first five manned Mercury spacecraft:

As already noted, Sigma 7 and Aurora 7 have no "noseart."

FFrench
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posted 07-22-2007 09:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for FFrench     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks Mike - it would be interesting to see a photo of Faith 7 if anyone has one.

Of course, post-flight, Liberty Bell 7 probably had the ultimate protection against any light-fingered engineers...

condormd
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posted 07-22-2007 09:46 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for condormd   Click Here to Email condormd     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The question of the art on Aurora 7 is something that also perplexed me. I was in Chicago a few years back, and took a trip to the Museum of Science and Industry. I was surprised that I could not find the nose art on Aurora 7.

The reason that I was so surprised is that I grew up near the 1964-5 World's Fair. I often made visits to the rocket park by the Hall of Science. Both Gemini 4 (1965) and Aurora 7 (1964 and 1965) were displayed there.

Both were displayed outdoors without any plastic covering over the shingles. The only protection I remember seeing was a piece of plexiglass over the hatch. I was a child then, but I do distinctly remember seeing the Aurora 7 noseart. It was very faded. It's is possible that I have some snapshots stashed away somewhere, if I do I will post.

It is possible that two outdoor summers without protection could have promoted the deterioration of the noseart.

ejectr
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posted 07-23-2007 06:49 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for ejectr   Click Here to Email ejectr     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Some pretty good shots of Faith 7 artwork on Field Guide to American Spacecraft.

FFrench
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posted 07-23-2007 03:35 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for FFrench     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks - wow, that artwork took a beating... but at least it is still there.

FFrench
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posted 08-27-2007 02:42 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for FFrench     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Of particular interest are three McDonnell Aircraft Corporation photos, numbered D4C 8243, 9305 and 9308, and one of which has been dated 3/28/62. All three show a post-flight Mercury spacecraft.

Only one of the images shows the Aurora 7 logo, but the spacecraft is in the same white cradle in each, and so the assumption could be made that they are all of Aurora 7 taken at the same time. One image shows two engineers unscrewing the shingles, and the logo shingle has already been removed. This is the photo dated 3/28.

It would appear then, based on the above, that the artwork was almost immediately removed post-flight - perhaps it never returned.

FFrench
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posted 10-05-2007 10:31 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for FFrench     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
While here in Chicago, I accepted a kind offer from the curator at the Science and Industry museum to inspect the Aurora 7 spacecraft - the first time I have seen it since seeing it in Hong Kong in 1984. We got out a stepladder to look at the top, so I could get a good look at the area where Cece's artwork was.

No evidence of the main painting on the shingles, but I did find that a small amount of artwork has survived. If you look at this postflight image, you can see that some of the last "A" overlapped onto a second shingle.

That paint is still there - it can be partially seen in Scott's July 20 posting, above. The artwork also originally overlapped onto the shingle on the left, but I could not see any evidence of remaining paint there.

Nice to think that, however tiny, at least some of Cece's paint is still on the spacecraft.

KC Stoever
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posted 10-06-2007 01:00 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for KC Stoever   Click Here to Email KC Stoever     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Francis, what a terrific report. Thank you for taking time from your signings! And thank you to Scott, Lou, Larry, John, everyone, for helping with this mystery story, which extends, of course, to Wally's Sigma 7 missing capsule art.

I would add only that inspection of the posted photos reveals that the art for Aurora 7 overlapped the A3 shingle (A3, if I recall correctly, according to Scott's diagram on spacereplicas.com) on both the right and the left.

So some paint from the aurora rings should be evident on the shingle to the left, just as the terminal "A" in "AURORA" extended slightly to the right.

(A thought. Aurora 7 was on display at the 1964 World Fair. There must be some photographs of the capsule then. If the art is missing in 1964 photographs, this visual evidence would corroborate the 1962 postflight photographs. [On edit: corroborate an early (ca. 1962) disappearance of the art-bearing shingle rather than a later disappearance.])

FFrench
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posted 10-07-2007 12:36 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for FFrench     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Yes, I looked at all three shingles (I took a photo of the post-flight artwork with me so I could directly compare). From what I could see, only the paint on the right hand shingle remained. I looked at the one on the left too where the painting had also overlapped, but no evidence of paint there that I could see, sadly.

FFrench
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posted 10-07-2007 09:48 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for FFrench     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
...and it turns out that the camera picked up more than I could see — both because it was a very inaccessible spot at the very top of the display, and also because the flash brought out details I could not see.

Looking at the post-flight link I gave above, it can be seen that some of the blue 7 and the lighter aurora-effect artwork overlapped to the left. This was not visible to my eyes when inspecting, but close examination of my photos of the current spacecraft display reveals that some of both are indeed still on that panel.

Hoorah! Tiny parts of the artwork, but better than nothing. So it seems that the side panels are original, and only the middle one lost the artwork.

FFrench
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posted 10-08-2007 12:01 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for FFrench     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
This photo shows the last "A" of Aurora overlapping onto the next shingle in a photo taken post-flight:

This photo shows the same area now - not much paint has survived, but the bottom of the A is still there:

This shows a wider view of the area, showing more location context:

FFrench
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posted 10-08-2007 12:03 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for FFrench     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
This photo is an even wider view. Note, to the left, a little white line where the left hand panel meets the central one:

This photo shows that left-hand area as it appeared post-flight:

This photo shows the stripe of white paint, and even the end of the blue 7, that survived. This was not visible to me when inspecting because of the hard-to-reach position and lighting conditions, but shows up well in this photo:

Robert Pearlman
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posted 09-12-2020 12:37 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The Mercury spacecraft shingles with the Aurora 7 and Sigma 7 logos have resurfaced. They are for sale as part of RR Auction's October 2020 auction. The lot descriptions provide an explanation for their removal.
In order to understand the effects of reentry on the materials used for the shell of the Mercury capsule, NASA transferred this panel to Dr. John F. Radavich of Purdue University...

In August 1962, he published a paper entitled "Microstructural Changes Produced in Orbited Rene' 41 Heat Shingles," in which he noted that the panel surfaces displayed no obvious meteorite impacts; that the outer oxide layer undergoes an enrichment of chromium oxide relative to preflight material; and that the amount of M6C carbide phase in flown material decreases relative to the TiC phase, among other observations.

On October 3, 1962, the Lafayette Journal and Courier reported on Dr. Radavich’s studies: "A heat shingle from the space capsule which took astronaut Scott Carpenter on his orbital flight last May is being sent by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to Purdue University for intensive study by Dr. John F. Radavich, associate professor of aeronautical and engineering sciences."

On December 9, 1962, the Terre Haute Tribune featured an image of Dr. Radavich posing with this shingle, captioned: "Sigma 7 Shingle Studied by Scientist — One of two high-temperature alloy shingles from U.S. astronaut Walter Schirra's Sigma 7 space capsule being studied to determine structural changes during orbit and re-entry is displayed by by Dr. John F. Radavich, Purdue University materials researcher, in LaFayette, Ind."

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