Gus Grissom and the Dawn of American Spaceflight

Before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, before Apollo 11 captured the world's imagination, there was Gus Grissom—a small-town Indiana boy who became one of NASA's original Mercury Seven astronauts. On July 21, 1961, Grissom piloted Liberty Bell 7 in America's second manned spaceflight, a 15-minute suborbital mission that should have been a triumph. Instead, the capsule's hatch blew prematurely after splashdown, sinking the spacecraft and nearly drowning Grissom in the Atlantic Ocean.

Born in Mitchell, Indiana in 1926, Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom was a Korean War combat pilot who became one of America's space pioneers. His controversial Liberty Bell 7 mission raised questions that haunted him throughout his career: Did he panic and blow the hatch early? Or did a mechanical failure nearly cost him his life? The answers would shape NASA's future and Grissom's legacy as he went on to command the first Gemini mission and was selected to command Apollo 1.

This episode explores how a small-town Midwestern kid helped launch America into the Space Age, the controversy that surrounded his splashdown, and the tragedy that would ultimately claim his life. From Mitchell's quarries to the stars, Gus Grissom's story reveals the human cost of reaching beyond our world.

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