The Rocket Garden

Outside of the Kennedy Space Center is a display of various launch vehicles and other hardware used for both manned and unmanned missions. It's pretty cool!

At left is a Redstone rocket used for the sub-orbital flights of the Mercury Missions- most notably Alan B. Shepard's flight on May 5, 1961.

All the Mercury capsule names had a "7" appended, standing for the original seven astronauts: M. Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper, John H. Glenn, Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom, Walter M. Schirra, Alan B. Shepard, and Donald K. (Deke) Slayton.

There were six manned Mercury missions. Slayton didn't make it to space until the Apollo-Soyuz mission.

The orbital flights of John Glenn and others used the more powerful Atlas. The Atlas is different than most of the other missiles in the garden as it has three in-line rocket motors. The two outside motors were boosters and only fired at launch.

It's still a ballistic missile with a tiny capsule where the warhead used to be.

At left is a Titan II, another ICBM pressed into service for manned spaceflight.

The Gemini program was used to test concepts and procedures that would be needed for a moon mission: human and mechanical endurance in space, orbital docking, reentry practice, and just in case- EVA (extra vehicular activity).

The capsule held two astronauts; many Apollo astronauts first made it to space in a Gemini capsule.

Explorer 1 (the first American Satellite) went up on a Juno 1, Mercury 3 (the first American in space) went up on a Redstone- or were they Jupiter Cs? They all look the same!!

The relationship between the Redstone, Juno 1, and Jupiter C missiles is a little confusing.

As I understand it, the Redstone is the first stage of both the Juno 1 and Jupiter C. The Jupiter C did not have a 4th stage motor while the Juno 1 did. Very similar rockets.

Above is a satellite-bearing configuration of a multistage Redstone, which is to say a Juno 1. The "UE" means #29, which was the number of the Redstone booster used in the Juno 1 that launched Explorer 1. In the foreground is an F-1 Engine of the Saturn V. Behind it all is a Saturn IB.

The Saturn IB- basically the top half of the Saturn V. It was used in the early Apollo missions to get a Command and Service Module to Earth orbit for various tests.

Tragically, it was during an Earthbound test in Apollo 1 that a fire took the lives of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. At that time the Command Capsule was filled with pure oxygen- an attempt to save the weight of having a less combustible air mix. Also to save weight, the capsule hatch was bolted in place- impossible to open in a hurry.

As a result of the fire, the Command Capsule design was revised- the hatch remade to swing outward on hinges, the oxygen was mixed with nitrogen, and wires were better insulated.

The propulsion system of the Saturn IB first stage booster.

It's a big ship- but it's not as monstrously gigantic as the Saturn V!