Rocket lifting off near Gantry at night [no title on the photograph--description of the image]; NASA B-59-557
Washington DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1959. Contemporary print. Photograph. Sheet is approximately 8 inches by 10.5 inches. Black and white photographic image is approximately 9 inches by 6.5 inches. This is printed on photographic paper stock. The image is of a rocket lifting off next to a gantry taken at night. This may be a photograph of the Mercury Redstone rocket. It is contemporary with Project Mercury. Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. Taken over from the US Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency NASA, it conducted twenty uncrewed developmental flights (some using animals), and six successful flights by astronauts. The program took its name from Roman mythology. The astronauts were collectively known as the "Mercury Seven", and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a "7" by its pilot. More