been watching "In Search of Liberty Bell 7" on the Science Channel
Good Show
It was pulled from the sea (Last Year) at a depth of 3 miles, 38 years after it was lost.
Liberty Bell-7 is the second U.S. manned spacecraft designed for orbital flight and the only manned NASA capsule that had never been recovered. During 1960-61, the US. space program launched several Mercury capsules atop Redstone missiles, in a series of sub-orbital flights. The first, Freedom-7, flown by Navy Lieutenant Commander Alan B. Shepard, Jr., was a success. On the second, Liberty Bell-7, flown by Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, things went terribly wrong. At splashdown, explosive bolts on the capsule's hatch blew unexpectedly. Water rushed in. Although Grissom escaped, he nearly drowned as his spacesuit flooded. The capsule swamped quickly, disappearing into seas more than three miles deep. It was well beyond the reach of 1960's underwater technology. Thirty-eight years later, a Discovery Channelexpedition led by marine salvage expert Curt Newport, finds and attempts to recover this historic treasure, lost in the daring, earliest days of space travel.
On Air (ET):
Feb 29 2004 @ 08:00 AM
Feb 29 2004 @ 01:00 PM
Feb 29 2004 @ 04:00 PM
In Search of Liberty Bell 7