Adam Flight 1

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Adam Flight 1

Part of Adam

Adam
Project Adam manned capsule atop Redstone (right) compared to Mercury-Redstone.
Credit: © Mark Wade

In February 1958, building on the success of his Redstone putting America's first satellite into space, Wernher von Braun proposed Project Adam. This modest $12 million project promised to have an American in space by the end of 1959, a year sooner than the Air Force's $100 million MISS (Man-In-Space-Soonest). Originally dubbed "Man Very High", the idea was to use an Army Ballistic Missile Agency Redstone rocket to boost a USAF Man High balloon gondola with a human 'test subject' on a suborbital trajectory. The concept was opposed by both the USAF and NACA. It was finally killed in July 1958, but then roled into Project Mercury by NASA - with the first manned flight of Mercury-Redstone not coming until April 1961 - after the Soviets had orbited the first man in space.

Launched: End of 1959.

Family: Manned spaceflight. Country: USA. Spacecraft: Adam.

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