Interesting group lot of five vintage Mercury-era NASA publications, which includes commemorative booklets for the Mercury-Redstone 4 mission (Gus Grissom’s flight of the Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft), the Mercury-Atlas 7 mission (Scott Carpenter’s flight of Aurora 7), the Mercury-Atlas 8 mission (Wally Schirra’s flight of Sigma 7), and the Mercury-Atlas 9 mission (Gordon Cooper’s flight of Faith 7); and a stapled manual entitled “Operations Manual: Operational Support Vessel Retriever,” released by MSC’s Flight Operations Division on June 1, 1963; this manual dates to after the last Mercury mission and before the first Gemini mission. In overall fine condition, with some age toning to the edges.
Originates from the personal collection of NASA engineer John B. Graham, Jr. (1934-2024), who worked side-by-side with many of the legendary astronauts from the Apollo, Gemini, and Mercury programs, and served as head of recovery during the latter program. Amongst his many positions, Graham was responsible for reconstructing images that were taken from deep space for orbital tracking purposes. As such, he holds the honor of being the first person to ever view a photograph of the Earth from the moon's surface.
