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Space History Photo: Boilerplate Mercury Capsule

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space history, nasa, mercury
Engineers inspect a boilerplate Mercury capsule in 1960. (Image credit: NASA)

In this historical photo from the U.S. space agency, looking like a scene from an H.G. Wells novel, engineers inspect and test a boilerplate Mercury space capsule. Note the array of bulky test equipment on the table and the less than clean-room conditions.

Today such testing is conducted under virtually sterile conditions in a completely controlled environment.

Each weekday, SPACE.com looks back at the history of spaceflight through photos (archive).

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U.S. Space Agency

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the U.S. government agency in charge of the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. Founded in 1958, NASA is a civilian space agency aimed at exploring the universe with space telescopes,  satellites, robotic spacecraft, astronauts and more. The space agency has 10 major centers based across the U.S. and launches robotic and crewed missions from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral Florida. It's astronaut corps is based at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. To follow NASA's latest mission, follow the space agency on Twitter or any other social channel, of visit: nasa.gov.