Astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom and the Liberty Bell 7

On July 21, 1961, Virgil "Gus" Grissom became the second of the Mercury Seven astronauts to be launched into space in the capsule Liberty Bell 7. The flight lasted a little over 15 minutes and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean and splashed down over 262 nautical miles downrange. Upon recovery, the hatch bolts of the capsule inexplicably ignited, sending the astronaut into the ocean and filling the Liberty Bell 7 with water, causing it to sink to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

It was 38 years later that a crew located and recovered the fabled space capsule from the ocean floor. Upon its recovery, it was disassembled and restored by The Cosmosphere Space Museum in Hutchinson, Kansas, and incorporated into their collection.

On the 60th anniversary of the initial Mercury program space flights, Shannon Whetzel, curator at the museum, give a presentation on the Liberty Bell 7, from the heights of its sub-orbital flight to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, and its eventual recovery and preservation.