Still suited from his Mercury‑Redstone 4 spaceflight, astronaut Gus Grissom speaks by phone with President Kennedy on July 21, 1961. Just moments earlier, Grissom had completed a 15‑minute suborbital journey aboard Liberty Bell 7, becoming the second American in space.
The flight ended dramatically when the capsule’s hatch blew prematurely after splashdown, flooding the spacecraft and sending it to the ocean floor—where it remained undiscovered until 1999.
The premature blowing of the hatch nearly cost Grissom his life as his spacesuit rapidly filled with seawater, forcing him to struggle against the waves while rescue helicopters attempted to salvage the sinking capsule. For decades, critics debated whether mechanical failure or pilot error triggered the explosive bolts. The 1999 recovery of Liberty Bell 7 ultimately vindicated Grissom, revealing forensic evidence pointing to a transient electrical short or structural anomaly rather than human mistake.
