Last Shuttle Flight Marks 50th Anniversary of Gus Grissom and Liberty Bell 7

While all eyes are focused on the last space shuttle flight that concluded in the morning, Thursday marks the anniversary of the second American in space.

On July 21, 1961, Gus Grissom, a decorated pilot who flew 100 combat missions during the Korean War and was chosen to be one of the Mercury 7, took off in the Liberty Bell 7, heading south from Cape Canaveral. Grissom was in flight for almost 16 minutes before splashdown. An accident took place during the landing which blew the hatch off. Grissoms suit started taking in water and the Liberty Bell 7 sunk. While there was speculation that Grissom had caused the hatch to blow and that he was responsible for the lost spacecraft, there is no evidence for this and NASA certainly didn't lose faith in him. Grissom would be the first American astronaut to enter space twice when he commanded the Gemini 3 mission in 1965. He would die in 1967 in the Apollo 1 accident that also took the lives of Ed White, the first American to walk in space, and Roger Chaffee.

Liberty Bell 7 was recovered in 1999 and studies confirmed that Grissom did nothing wrong during its flight. Itcan now be seen at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, which is northwest of Wichita.

Many schools are named after Grissom and it is fitting that a hill on Mars and a landmark on the moon preserve his name.

If we die, we want people to accept it, said Grissom after the Gemini 3 mission. We are in a risky business and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.

Fitting words from an American hero whose first mission in space took place exactly 50 years before the latest chapter in space closed.