Jun 13 2000
From The Space Library
Having restored Liberty Bell 7, which had spent 38 years at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, NASA placed the space capsule on display at Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Liberty Bell 7 had carried astronaut Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom into space on 21 July 1961, in NASA's second piloted spaceflight. After its pathbreaking, 15-minute, suborbital flight, the capsule had descended to the ocean. The hatch of Liberty Bell 7 had blown off just after landing, causing the capsule to fill with water and almost drowning Grissom. A helicopter present at the landing had tried to pull the Liberty Bell 7 out of the water, but the waterlogged capsule had become too heavy, and the crew had to cut it loose, leaving it to sink. Regarding the hatch's failure, astronaut Grissom had maintained until his death in the 1967 Apollo launchpad fire, that he had followed proper protocol. Nearly 40 years after the ocean landing, the Discovery Channel had funded a recovery mission that had brought the historic spacecraft out of the ocean. Although divers had not found the hatch, previous NASA investigations had supported Grissom's claim that human error had not caused the hatch failure. NASA had restored the capsule, lacing it in a clear plastic display case so that visitors to KSC could peer inside the spacecraft.
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