A Discovery Channel expedition has recovered the Liberty Bell 7 space capsule that had been lost at sea for nearly 38 years. The capsule was reeled in by a crane aboard the ship Ocean Project in water 90 miles northeast of the Bahamas.
Liberty Bell 7, which was located this year by an earlier expedition, was lost during the 1961 splashdown of Mercury astronaut Virgil "Gus" Grissom. Grissom nearly died during the splashdown, when the capsule's door unexpectedly blew off. Until now, Liberty Bell 7 was the only manned American spacecraft that had not been recovered. The recovery expedition began on July 1 and was led by underwater salvage expert Curt Newport. The capsule was brought aboard the recovery ship at about 2:20 a.m. today.
Newport recounted details of the operation in a telephone press conference later in the day. The capsule required several hours to be lifted from the ocean floor, he noted. During this time there was suspense as to whether it was in fact attached to the recovery line. "It was just nerve-wracking for me," said Newport. "I was having kittens, having to sit there and watch the line."
When the capsule emerged from the water, "it almost appeared like an apparition, like a ghost," recalled Newport. It was, he said, as if the capsule had been "brought to the surface through a time portal" from 1961.
Portions of the spacecraft appear to be well preserved, according to Newport. The exterior of the capsule is in "very good condition," he said, and some fabrics from the interior are "almost like new." However, the capsule's control panels are heavily damaged, and a reel of film from an on-board camera is unlikely to produce usable footage.
The capsule eventually will be put on display at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, a museum in Hutchinson, Kansas. Max Ary, president of the museum, was aboard the ship during the recovery operation and participated in the subsequent telephone press conference. Asked what was gained by recovering the capsule, Ary cited the expedition's "spirit of adventure."
Moreover, he stated, the capsule is "a critically important artifact" of the 1960s space race between the United States and the Soviet Union.
In addition to the capsule, the expedition recovered an ink canister. Such canisters were used to color the water at splashdown sites, as an aid to locating astronauts.
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