Adam 6Spacecraft:(no serial number) Launch Vehicle: Redstone Scheduled Launch: 1 Apr 1960 Last Scheduled: 1 Feb 1958 |
Prime Crew |
Description: 3rd Adam Redstone manned suborbital |
 |
 |
 |
not assigned 
|
Backup Crew |
not assigned
|
|
|
||||||||
|
|
In early 1958 Wernher von Braun proposed launching an American aboard an Army Redstone on a suborbital mission into space before the end of 1959 at a cost of under $12 million. Hugh Dryden, head of the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics, derided the proposal as a "circus stunt." Ironically, within six months Congress transformed NACA into NASA, an act which transferred von Braun's Redstone Aresenal team from the US Army to the new civilian agency. Following several months of review, Dryden decided that von Braun's concept was not a circus stunt after all, and it evolved into the Mercury Redstone manned suborbital program, which launched the first American astronaut in May 1961. Although the year and half delay can be attributed to a mixture of bureaucratic and technical issues, it is easy to make the case that von Braun's team would have made quicker progress had it not had to brief an entirely new set of desks that was unfamiliar with their work. As it turned out, von Braun's team missed launching the first man into space by three weeks. The Army was shut out of the discussion so early in 1958 regarding putting a man in space that it is unlikely that a launch schedule was put to paper; however, based on the von Braun teams actual performance in launching Mercury Redstone missions, it can be speculated that the first unmanned launch attempt would have preceded the first manned launch attempt by six months, and that three unmanned Redstone flights would have been required to qualify the launch vehicle prior to the first manned flight. Additionally, it can be speculated that there would have been two additional manned flights planned as backups to assure that the objective of the program would be achieved. References:
|