Couch, Mercury Procedures Trainer, Shepard

In order to better withstand the high "G" loads of launch and reentry, each astronaut in Project Mercury, the first U.S. human spaceflight program, had form-fitting fiberglass couches cast for his body. This couch was used in the Mercury Procedures Trainer, a simulator, by Alan B. Shepard, Jr., the first American in space. Shepard flew a short suborbital hop in May 1961, and was the backup for L. Gordon Cooper's thirty-four-hour orbital mission in May 1963. He hoped to fly in space again on the next mission, but NASA decided to end the Mercury program to move on to its next project, Gemini. Shepard did not go into space again until 1971, when he commanded the Apollo 14 lunar-landing mission.

Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV), the simulator contractor, transferred this artifact to the National Air and Space Museum on behalf of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center) in 1968.