Mercury Redstone 4 July 21st 1961

These are 1/72 scale decals for Mercury-Redstone 4, launched on 21 July 1961 from Cape Canaveral, Florida — the rocket that carried Captain Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom into space aboard Liberty Bell 7, making him the second American in space and the flight that ended in one of the most dramatic recoveries — and enduring controversies — in spaceflight history.

Like Shepard's MR-3 flight before it, MR-4 was a suborbital mission, reaching a peak altitude of 190 kilometers before splashing down in the Atlantic after a flight of just over 15 minutes. Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 featured several improvements over Shepard's Freedom 7, most notably a large trapezoidal window for improved visibility and a newly designed explosive hatch for faster egress in an emergency. It was that hatch that made history: shortly after splashdown, it blew prematurely — whether by malfunction or accidental activation remains debated to this day — flooding the capsule. Grissom escaped into the water but nearly drowned as his suit filled with seawater, and the recovery helicopter, struggling with the weight of the sinking capsule, was forced to cut it loose. Liberty Bell 7 sank to the bottom of the Atlantic, where it rested for 38 years before being recovered in 1999.

Grissom was unfairly dogged by suggestions that he had panicked and blown the hatch himself — a cloud that followed him until his death. He went on to fly Gemini 3, the first crewed Gemini mission, and was selected to command Apollo 1 — the mission that ended in tragedy on the launch pad on 27 January 1967. History has since vindicated Grissom as one of the finest and most courageous astronauts of the Mercury era, and Liberty Bell 7's recovery from the ocean floor stands as a fitting final chapter to his MR-4 story.

A companion piece to MR-3 and one of the most dramatic and storied flights of the Mercury program. Please allow some time for decal printing and shipping.