Virgil “Gus” Grissom

On July 21, 1961,  Capt. Virgil “Gus”Grissom was pilot of the second Project
Mercury flight, Mercury-Redstone 4, popularly known as Liberty Bell 7. This
was a suborbital flight which lasted 15 minutes and 37 seconds. After the
splashdown, emergency explosive bolts unexpectedly fired and blew the
hatch off, causing water to flood into the spacecraft. Quickly exiting through
the open hatch and into the ocean, Grissom was nearly drowned as water
began filling his spacesuit. A nearby helicopter tried to lift and recover the
flooding spacecraft, but it became too heavy, and was cut loose before
before sinking. Grissom asserted he had done nothing to cause the hatch
to blow, and NASA officials eventually concluded that he was correct.

Grissom is shown being lifted from the ocean following splashdown

A Marine helicopter attempts to recover the water logged Liberty Bell 7

The crew (left to right) Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module
Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr.

on the morning of July 16,at 5:29:45 a.m., the Manhattan Project come to an
explosive end as the first atom bomb was successfully tested at Trinity Site at
the Alamogordo Bombing Range ( renamed The White Sands Missile Range) 
in the desert 120 miles south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The scientists and a
few dignitaries had removed themselves 10,000 yards away to observe as
the first mushroom cloud of searing light (above) stretched 40,000 feet into
the air and generated the destructive power of 15,000 to 20,000 tons of
TNT. The tower on which the bomb (below) sat when detonated was
vaporized.
    
 

Pictured above is the first atomic bomb, nicknamed " the Gadget”.

Mariner 4 was launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida on November 28, 1964. It
became the first satellite to perform a successful fly-by of the planet Mars taking
the first close-up pictures of the planets surface and transmitting them to Earth
beginning on July 15, 1965. On December 21, 1967 communications with Mariner
4 were terminated.

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