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Project Mercury was the United States' first attempt to send humans into space. It began in 1958. The project had three main objectives: to orbit a manned spacecraft around Earth, to see how well humans fared in space, and to recover both the spacecraft and its crew safely. Project Mercury made six manned flights from 1961 to 1963.
After the Soviet Union launched "Sputnik," the first artificial satellite, the United States decided to start a space program because they didn't want to be beaten by the communists.
The first U.S. spaceship was a cone-shaped one-man capsule with a cylinder mounted on top. It was 6 ft., 10 in. long, and 6 ft., 2 1/2 in. in diameter. A 19 ft., 2 in. escape tower was fastened to the cylinder of the capsule. The rounded, bottom end was covered with a heat shield to protect it against the 3,000 degree heat from atmospheric entry.
Before the United States launched any humans into space, they launched an unmanned test flight of the......

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Approximate Pages: 7 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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