The Spacecraft That Became A Submarine.

On the 21st July 1961, Captain Virgil I. Grissom flew the second Mercury spacrcraft which, like Alan Shepard's historic first flight, was a suborbital lob that reached 118 miles into space before re-entry.

Grissom's craft, the Liberty Bell 7, splashed down in the mid Atlantic Ocean, nearly sixteen minutes after launch and nearly 6 miles from USS Randolph, the recovery ship.

As he waited for the helicopter to arrive, the hatch blew open and water flooded in. Managing to escape in his spacesuit, the helicopter arrived, and with the suit also taking on water, the astronaut was eventually rescued - but the Liberty Bellwasn't, sinking to a depth later estimated to be around 2,800 fathoms.

On July 20th 1999, Liberty Bell 7 was recovered from the ocean floor some 300 nautical miles southeast of Cape Canaveral, after a fourteen-year effort by a team lead by Curt Newport and sponsored by the Discovery Channel. The ship was in surprisingly good condition after 38 years on the seabed, and is on permanent display at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, Kansas.

'Gus' Grissom was killed on January 27, 1967 in the Apollo 1 tragedy, along with fellow astronauts Ed White and Roger Chaffee, when fire swept the spacecraft during a pre-launch test.