1961 Space Capsule Recovered From Sea

Nearly 38 years after its splashdown from space, the space capsule Liberty Bell 7 was successfully raised early Tuesday, a team of explorers announced.

The capsule had lain three miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean near the Bahamas since astronaut Gus Grissom’s 15-minute flight July 21, 1961. Parts of the craft were remarkably well-preserved, including several dimes from clothing worn by Grissom.

Liberty Bell was the only manned spacecraft that had not been recovered.

Though searchers first located the capsule May 1, they were unable to retrieve it when their remote-controlled vehicle was cut loose by turbulent seas. Returning to the site two months later, the expedition met with an unexpected challenge: the capsule was not there.

“Spacecraft consistently prove to be elusive targets,” said expedition leader Curt Newport, who headed the recovery team funded by the Discovery Channel. NASA had decided not to attempt a recovery for financial reasons.

Moving two miles north, about 90 miles northeast of the Bahamas, the team again located the Liberty Bell. Using a new remote-controlled vehicle, they attached Kevlar lines to the capsule and successfully hoisted it to the surface, breaking through the water at 2:15 a.m. EDT Tuesday.

“Everybody was watching the line for a little murmur or a hiccup to tell them, ‘Is this thing there or is it not there?’ ” Newport said. “I had some nervous moments when I thought we had lost it.”

Once the capsule was lowered to the deck, bomb experts from UXB International Inc. set to work. An attached pyrotechnic device had been intended to assist crews in finding the craft if it sank. The device never detonated and was considered an unstable hazard.

The explosive was detached and thrown overboard.

A cursory inspection of the craft’s interior showed some remarkable preservation, Newport said. The fabric was well-preserved, including straps that held Grissom for his flight, which traveled 118.3 miles into space, making him the second American astronaut.

Even Grissom’s souvenir dimes were found. “We were rummaging, peeking around inside with a flashlight, and saw something shining,” Newport said, “And we came up with the Mercury dimes.”

Not everything was so well-preserved, according to Max Ary, president of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, Kan., which will restore and exhibit the capsule around the country before returning it to Kansas.

“There was a lot more corrosion than I anticipated,” he said. “[Of] three main control panels, two have pretty much dissolved. The instruments are dangling from wires.”

Conspicuously absent from the recovered capsule was the hatch. When Liberty Bell splashed down, the explosive bolts that were to blow open the hatch detonated early. The capsule rapidly filled with water, and Grissom nearly drowned.

Nevertheless, Grissom continued on in his NASA career. He was the first man to make a second trip into space when he commanded a test of the Gemini 3 mission. He died in the Apollo 1 cabin fire in 1967.

Jim Lewis, the helicopter pilot who tried to pull the sinking Liberty Bell out of the water at the time of the splashdown, sailed with the recovery crew and watched as the capsule was pulled from the sea. Lewis’ original recovery line was still attached.

“It was really a strange feeling . . . to be out in the same place, with the sea state very similar . . . to see the capsule come out of the water again,” he said. “It was very fulfilling.”

The recovery mission was funded by the Discovery Channel through its Expedition Adventure programming series. The channel’s Web site (www.discovery.com) chronicles the Liberty Bell expedition, and it will air a documentary in December on the recovery.

Though the scientific value of the recovered Liberty Bell might be debatable, the emotional value is not, according to Ary.

“The spirit of adventure is very deeply ingrained in all of us. When Gus Grissom climbed in, he was on an adventure to explore the unknown,” Ary said. “To find the Liberty Bell, we did the same thing.”