MERCURY MR-2 Spacecraft

In October/November 2000, while I was on vacation in Los Angeles, I had the opportunity to visit the Los Angeles Aerospace museum. The museum is located in Science Park near the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. There are two flown American capsules from the beginning of the space program on display. The first interesting item they have is the Mercury MR-2 capsule in which chimpanzee HAM made a sub-orbital flight on January 31, 1961. The final test before Alan Shepard became the “first” American in space.

At the time of my visit the museum was closed for the public because of a major upgrade and repositioning of the exhibits, but according to museum curator Ken Philips (who was kind enough to take me on a tour) it is scheduled to re-open in July 2001.

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