it is the Mercury-Redstone 1 Launch failure (MR-1),
a number of amazing things happened in the lunch, and yes it did launch, 4" (10 centimeters), into the air before settling back on terra firma again, luck
was on NASA’s side – the wind was gentle, and the rocket stayed safely upright,
but what just happened? from the article,
'the rocket engines fired, but then stopped again
very quickly. What followed were several seemingly random events. The first
thing to happen was the escape tower disappearing in a cloud of smoke, followed
by the release of the recovery parachute that was designed to carry the Mercury
capsule safely back to Earth. You will notice that the parachute did not
inflate. This is hardly surprising, as the capsule was sat motionless on its launch
pad, everything then fell silent but the potential for disaster was still high.
Here was a rocket, full of fuel, powered by internal batteries and packed with
explosive charges',
what more could possibly got wrong? As it happens nothing, for a full look at what happens next and why just 2 plugs brought this multi million dollar rocket to a halt have a look here, an interesting read, particularly about designing the correct components from the get go.
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