Hunt for Grissom’s Space Capsule Begins

A salvage team set off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., in search of Mercury astronaut Gus Grissom’s space capsule, entombed in the Atlantic for 38 years. A 180-foot ship, the Needham Tide, headed for the 3-mile-deep waters 300 miles southeast of the Florida coast. Curt Newport, the expedition leader, estimated it would take at least one day to reach the area where he believes Grissom’s Liberty Bell 7 lies on the ocean floor. The capsule splashed down July 21, 1961, after Grissom’s 15-minute suborbital flight, which made him only the second American in space. The hatch blew open too soon, and water in the capsule made it too heavy for a helicopter to lift. The capsule was allowed to sink. Grissom, who nearly drowned, insisted until his death in the 1967 Apollo launch pad fire that he did nothing wrong.