In Search of Liberty Bell 7 (1999)

May 05, 1961, America sent Alan Shepherd, its first astronaut, into space. On July 21st, the second American in space was Virgil "Gus" Grissom whose quarter-hour flight went according to plan until the capsule parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean. While waiting for a Navy helicopter to retrieve him and the Liberty 7 spacecraft, the explosive hatch detonated, opening the capsule to the ocean waters and dragging it down. Grissom got out of the craft while the chopper tried to save the capsule but the water added too much weight and Liberty Bell 7 was cut free to sink into the cold waters. In the late 1990s there were several ventures to locate and recover the space capsule. Once located, the retrieval in 1999 became an adventure challenged with hazards. The search and recovery is detailed here, accented by the story of the Liberty Bell 7's flight over 35 years earlier.