Mercury Space Capsule Wind Tunnel Model, ca. 1958
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GUEST:
Well, this is a prototype model of the Mercury capsule and booster rocket tested in the wind tunnels at Langley Field Research Center in Virginia as the country prepared to launch the Mercury capsule for the first time. And my father was an aeronautical engineer with NASA, and he was the one that tested these models, and from time to time, they would throw them in a junk pile behind the wind tunnel. And one day, for whatever reason, he took one home, and it, uh, sat in the garage for over 40 years and was discovered when we moved my father and mother up here from Seabrook, Texas, where he worked at the Johnson Space Center. He gave it to me in 2008. It's been on a shelf in my office ever since. I knew sort of what it was, I asked him about it. He did tell me that, that this had actually been mounted in the wind tunnels and tested. He started with the National Advisory Council for Aeronautics, N.A.C.A., in 1948. And in 1958, he became part of the space task group.
APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm.
GUEST:
Then we were moved to Virginia, where we lived, nestled in the community near all the astronauts, and he knew all of them quite well. I had a little boat I kept in John Glenn's backyard, who was... Who lived four doors down from us, and next door to Scott Carpenter, so... Knew a lot of the... In fact, knew all the first seven astronauts. My father was asked by the people at NASA to teach the first seven astronauts aeronautics.
APPRAISER:
What was it like growing up around all those astronauts?
GUEST:
It was very exciting. Very exciting. I recall television cameras set up in our front yard when John Glenn was sent into space in one of the Mercury capsules.
APPRAISER:
This, for me, is one of the most exciting things I've seen, NASA-related, to come in to ROADSHOW. This is from the, Project Mercury, like you said, and that was our first manned space program. And its goal was to launch the first American into space, and then to follow it up, to eventually land Americans on the moon. The Mercury rocket system was primarily developed by Maxime Faget, and what he was most remembered for was his development of the launch escape system. All this superstructure on the top is part of the launch escape system, and what it was was a couple of solid rocket boosters that, in the case of an emergency, those rockets would fire and pull the capsule away, and hopefully, you know, it'll allow the, uh, passenger to survive.
GUEST:
Passenger to survive, yes.
APPRAISER:
Project Mercury ran from 1958 to 1963, and throughout that process, they went with many different designs of not only the capsule, but the launch escape system. And this would have had to have been very early in the development cycle, because they had to test so many different configurations, and they finally launched the first American into space in 1961. In three years, they were able to completely design the capsule, the launch escape system, and everything-- all the life support inside-- that was necessary to launch a American into space. Most likely, this was made in 1958, 1959. And by the shape of it, we can tell this is nearing the final design of the Mercury capsule itself. Most of the time, when you see the wind tunnel models of the, like this, they're in museums. You very rarely see them in private hands. And more often than not, it's just a capsule or the entire rocket. You almost never see one with the entire superstructure on top, with all the great little details of all the little rocket nozzles, all four of them-- the three on the side and the one below. I mean, it's very well-made, out of stainless steel, soldered together. It's such a rare and highly desirable piece that I'm sure any collector would love to have it. I would give it a conservative auction estimate of between $60,000 and $80,000.
GUEST:
That's interesting.
APPRAISER:
Interesting.
GUEST:
Yeah, interesting.
APPRAISER:
(laughs)
GUEST:
It's not for sale. It's not gonna be sold, it might end up in a museum.
APPRAISER:
I would have no problem giving a very conservative insurance value of $80,000 to $120,000.
GUEST:
All right.
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