The Search for Liberty 7

On July 21, 1961, NASA launched its second manned spacecraft. LibertyBell 7 carried Virgil  Gus  Grissom into a suborbital flight. It was just a short flight, but yet another step towards humankind's quest into space. The 18 minute flight went successfully but a problem during splashdown and recovery sent the capsule to the bottom of the ocean until it was discovered earlier this month, thirty eight years later.

The exact details of the problem have remained a controversy for some time. The capsule s hatch was equipped with explosive bolts which were designed to blow open the hatch. Grissom maintained to his death that the bolts blew early, causing him to nearly drown and the capsule to sink. Some investigators claimed that this could not have happened and Grissom must have panicked and blown the hatch himself too early.Because the capsule was at the bottom of the ocean, it was impossible to know for sure what happened.

Whatever the cause of the accident, NASA felt secure enough with Grissom to allow him to stay in the program, but it was an ill fated future for Grissom. Grissom was part of the crew for the Apollo 1 flight in 1967. While the rocket was on the launch pad, a fire broke out, killing Grissom,
Ed White and Roger Chaffee.

At the time the capsule sank, technology did not permit locating and retrieving objects in such deep waters. It was only in this decade that speculation and plans to look for Liberty Bell 7 began. A salvage team, led by Curt Newport had looked for the sunken capsule 2 pervious times but did not have the sophisticated equipment needed to locate it. This time Newport s attempt was funded 1 million dollars from the Discovery Channel.

Newport planned to use sonar to search a 24 square mile area they had mapped out using NASA data from the original mission. They suspended an unmanned vehicle - the Ocean Explorer 6000 - on about five miles of cable behind the boat and let it sink to the sea floor. The torpedo shaped
craft glided near the ocean bottom while being towed by the boat. Shaped like a long torpedo, it sends out pings of sound and then records the messages bounced back from the ocean floor. Man-made objects reflect sound differently from natural formations and provided the searchers with potential targets.

The problem was, the Ocean Express provided Newport with 88 possible  finds  over the 24 square mile area. Newport had no choice but to plan to send an unmanned submarine called Magellan 725 down to look at each possible site. Imagine his surprise when the first spot they looked turned out to be the seven foot capsule! To illustrate how phenomenal this achievement was, consider that the space capsule is about the size of a volkswagon bug and was in water 3 miles deep. That s a half mile deeper than the Titanic, and the capsule was smaller than even one of the Titanic s boilers!

The submarine initially showed debris from the heat shield which the searchers followed up a hill where they found the capsule resting upright.  The capsule is in remarkably good shape, largely due to the heat shield deteriorating rather than the capsule itself. The capsule s name, Liberty
Bell 7 can easily be read, as well as the fake crack painted onto the capsule (to simulate the crack in the real bell.) The hatch is not within view, but Newport plans to take another look for it.

Magellan 725 was to be used to bring the capsule to the surface.  The plan calls for two vice-like devices to be clamped to an I-shaped beam on the top of the capsule. The clamps will be tied to a winch, which will hoist the craft. Before they could do this disaster struck. Surface winds began
picking up and as the ship was moved about, the 5 mile cable broke, freeing the submarine which is now resting somewhere near the capsule.

It will take at least a few weeks to obtain another submarine, however once he gets it, Newport plans to go back for both the capsule and the first submarine. Once the capsule is retrieved it will be taken to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, Kan., where it will be cleaned and eventually displayed.

If Newport does find the hatch it may finally answer the question of Grissom panicking, which NASA has denied all along. Two cameras and a tape recorder that sank with the capsule could also shed light on why the hatch blew open too soon, however, it is highly unlikely the film could
be salvaged after so long underwater. Most people though, don t seem to want to debate the hatch issue, they are merely excited that the craft has been found and will be recovered. The Liberty Bell 7 is the only spacecraft lost after a successful mission.