Talk:Mercury-Atlas 6

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A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on February 20, 2009.

Move (2006)[edit]

I have proposed that all Mercury missions are re-named. This will affect this page. So they can be discussed together on one page, I've set up a subpage of my user talk page for discussion of the moves. --GW_Simulations_{|User Page | Talk | Contribs | E-mail} 20:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fireflies[edit]

The "fireflies" were urine droplets vented out of the spacecraft. If I can find a citation for this I will include it in the article, but if anyone else has it, feel free to go ahead. None of this is in my areas of interest.--Buckboard 23:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The "fireflies" were not urine droplets vented out, that's a myth, possibly perpetuated by the scene in the movie Apollo 13. John Glenn's memoir covers this. In fact, his memoir covers a few other things that challenge some of the facts stated in this article. Can someone pls add in-line sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.146.176.24 (talk) 12:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's correct, if I recall, Glenn's memoir only mentions the "fireflies", and no apparent cause. Waste products from the astronauts may not have been designed for venting for Mercury anyway, due to the relatively short flights. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.53.232.146 (talk) 23:44, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Should be added[edit]

Mention should be made of the intense media & popular interest this mission received as it was the U.S. (and "free world"'s) first successful manned orbiting mission.... and also of the controversy regarding mission control's unwillingness to disclose all their concerns to Glenn about the possible landing bag deployment at the time. This is covered in his memoir also. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.146.176.24 (talk) 12:25, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Number in parentheses indicates number of spaceflights by each individual prior to and including this mission.[edit]

"Number in parentheses indicates number of spaceflights by each individual prior to and including this mission."

I know that someone has been applying this template to spaceflight mission articles, but in this case it seems a bit bureaucratic to add this, as, being the US's first manned spaceflight, the number is and can be only 1. - Aprogressivist (talk) 11:48, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Possible plagiarism problems need to be addressed[edit]

The bulk of this article appears to be plagiarized from source material, judging from its style and tone (and consistency of editing). Could someone please check the current article against the sources it lists? Perhaps good paraphrasing (and citing) would address the problem, if the information was indeed lifted verbatim from the listed sources, or from others unlisted. Memetics (talk) 19:54, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Be aware that works of NASA are generally in the public domain. See {{NASA}}. There are however many good reasons for adding plentiful source citations, and this article would certainly benefit from them. (sdsds - talk) 20:27, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

First US Astronaut to eat in space[edit]

Hey, I'm not a wikipedia guy so I don't know how to add this, but if someone could...John Glenn was the first US Astronaut to eat in space (from a tube, per the NASM):

https://airandspace.si.edu/exhibitions/apollo-to-the-moon/online/astronaut-life/food-in-space.cfm

"First Meal in Space

John Glenn was the first American to eat in space aboard Friendship 7 in 1962. At that time it was not known if ingestion and absorption of nutrients were possible in a state of zero gravity. Glenn's consumption of applesauce, packed in a tube, and xylose sugar tablets with water, demonstrated that people could eat, swallow, and digest food in a weightless environment.

Mercury space food of the early 1960s was based on Army survival rations, and consisted of pureed food packed into aluminum tubes and sucked through a straw. While Glenn and the other Mercury astronauts experienced no problems in chewing, drinking, swallowing, or digesting, the food was not considered very delicious.

Beef and Vegetables

This spacefood package containing pureed beef and vegetables was issued to John Glenn for consumption during his Friendship 7 flight in February 1962. Spacefood for the Mercury missions was placed in tube form to enable the astronauts to squeeze it directly into their mouths."

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.204.25.125 (talk) 01:08, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Technical accuracy of film dramatization[edit]

An editor recently added Hidden Figures to the film dramatization section. I just saw this film; it's very good, but contains a few technical inaccuracies for the sake of drama, one of which is inaccurately saying (in words on-screen at the end) that Glenn's flight was intended to last for seven orbits but was cut short to three because of the erroneous heat-shield indication. As this page notes, that is incorrect; although Glenn was "go for at least seven orbits" (meaning that was at least how long his orbit would last in the absence of retro fire), the program was conducted cautiously and it was only ever intended for him to make the three orbits.

This is verifiable by the Kenneth Gatland book Manned Spaceflight. (It also stands to common sense: Carpenter's following flight also made only three orbits, and Schirra's flight progressed to only six. If seven had been Glenn's goal, surely they would have been tried again on Carpenter's flight, and Schirra would have tried even more than six.) I think the erroneous reference to seven orbits should be noted here; this enhances the reader's encyclopedic understanding of the dramatic representation, and makes the reference to the movie more than just another trivia reference. (It should also be added to the Hidden Figures page, along with a few other minor technical and historical inaccuracies.) Would anyone have heartburn with me adding the number-of-orbits issue here? JustinTime55 (talk) 17:15, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if the 7 orbits was just misspoken, or taken from source material The Right Stuff (the movie), or the novel? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.53.232.146 (talk) 23:41, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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How many fragments?[edit]

In the "Spacecraft location" section, there's no explanation why the "fragment" found in South Africa becomes the plural "fragments" or why, in the second-to-last sentence of the section, both singular and plural forms are used.

This either needs to be explained, clarified, and/or corrected. 2600:8800:784:8F00:C23F:D5FF:FEC4:D51D (talk) 06:16, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's hard to do that when it isn't even cited per (WP:VERIFY) I'm moving it here until a citation can be found:

On February 21, 1962, a metal fragment was recovered on a farm near Aliwal-North, South Africa. It was identified as coming from the MA-6 Atlas launch vehicle by numbers stamped on it. The fragment had landed on the farm after about eight hours in orbit. The fragments were recovered by the police and handed over to NASA, which returned it as a token of goodwill. The fragments are today on display in the Science Museum in Pretoria.

JustinTime55 (talk) 14:56, 25 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Contradictory info[edit]

The apogee mentioned in the "Parameters" section contradicts the apogee in the infobox. In the infobox it says 248 km while in "Parameters" it says 248 nautical miles, that's almost twice as high. Also, in the "Reentry" section it's written that the drogue chute deployed at 28,000 ft while in the list "Flight" 22,000 ft are written. Glasfaser Wien (talk) 12:14, 13 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Downgrade[edit]

This is really a "C" article. Lots of good info, but huge swathes are uncited. Someday we'll do the Mercury flights right. :) I am going through adding "Naming" sections. --Neopeius (talk) 03:03, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]