Post 2 (exhibit)

Exhibit

The first artifact in my exhibit is the friendship 7 capsule that the American astronaut John Glenn did three out of the seven orbits that were supposed to happen on his trip on February 20, 1962. His flight was 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds and he traveled 75,679 miles. The capsule is currently in the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. As talked about on NASA's website, the flight did go pretty smoothly. Most of the major systems ran smoothly and was great success as an engineering feat. 

The second artifact in my exhibit is John Glenn's pressure suit he wore during the Friendship 7 flight. John's suit was developed by the B.F. Goodrich Company from the U.S. Navy MK-IV full pressure suit, and was chosen by NASA in 1959 to use in Project Mercury. The suit's exterior is made with aluminized nylon, nylon webbing, brass, steel, and aluminum. The exterior is made with rubber/neoprene and steel wire.

This 1957 Friden STW-10 mechanical calculator is the type that was used at NASA by the "human computers" including Katherine Johnson. A quote on NASA's website reads, "If you were doing complicated computations during that time, this is what you used."(Hampton History Museum Curator Allen Hoilman) This was no easy, hand held, portable calculator. This machine was 40 pounds.










This chalkboard is like the one Katherine Johnson
used to do her calculations. After Katherine left the West Computing group, she worked in an office with a bunch of men that sit at desks all day and the giant chalkboard. Katherine would get up on the ladder and do hard mathematical equations so quickly and would impress and shock everyone in the room.

My fifth artifact is the parachute from the friendship 7 orbit. During the flight he had to land early because there were some system malfunctions but luckily the parachute was one that worked so Glenn successfully and his splashdown safely landed in the Atlantic ocean.









This 1960 ford thunderbird is designed to look like a space ship along the side and on the back of the car. This is an example of how influential that space and space ships became. They were designed like these aerodynamic space ships that had a cool slick look to make them appealing to the eye.











My seventh artifact is a toy model of the friendship 7. This goes to show how much this one flight, fully successful or not, had an impact on America. It's another example of how much this flight impacted us because they are still selling friendship 7 toys today on eBay.











My last artifact is a newspaper from the Washington Post. The heading reads, "Glenn Lands Safely After Three Orbits; President Flies Friday to See Astronaut". The flight was such a big deal that President John Kennedy flew out to see him and awarded him the Space Congressional Medal of Honor. Schools and streets all over the U.S. have been named after him.