About Mercury-Redstone 3 Rocket:

Featured in the film The Right Stuff, the Mercury Program helped pioneer American space exploration. The Mercury Redstone 3 was the result of many (unsuccessful) test launches, paving the way for the historic mission crewed by the first American in space: Alan B. Shepard Jr. Launched less than a month after Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the Redstone provided the United States with an effective launch vehicle for the short suborbital mission on May 5, 1961. The rocket traveled to an altitude of 116 miles at roughly 5,000 mph (8,000 km/h).

The mission had several objectives: to familiarize man with a complete space flight including lift-off, weightlessness, reentry, and landing phases. The mission was also designed to see if Shepard could manually pilot the spacecraft while under the physical forces of all these phases. Two further objectives included observation of Shepard’s physiological reactions during the flight, and to safely recover the spacecraft and astronaut after their return to earth.

Specifications:

• Crew: 1
• Speed: 5,180 mph (8,340 km/h)
• Altitude: 115 mi (186 km)
• Payload: Freedom 7 capsule with astronaut Alan Shepard Jr.
• Flight duration: 15 min, 22 s

Additional information about this Brickmania custom building kit:

The Mercury-Redstone 3 Rocket kit comes with the following features

• 360-degree custom-printed minifigure
• Custom-printed mission and kit display tiles
• High-quality sticker sheet
• 1/110 scale to match other Brickmania Space Race kits
• Designed by Yitzy Kasowitz
• Includes 53 genuine new-condition LEGO® elements
• Sophomore Skill Level (2-4 years of experience with LEGO is recommended)

All Brickmania model kits are made of new-condition LEGO bricks. This model comes disassembled and includes complete printed building instructions and comes packaged in a sealed box. This is a limited-edition kit and production may be discontinued at any time.