Vintage Vinyl

In perhaps the most famous picture taken during the entire astrochimps era — by LIFE’s Ralph Morse — Ham mugs for the camera after his successful, rather eventful Mercury space flight. “The original flight plan,” Tara Gray, of NASA’s History Program Office, once wrote, “called for an altitude of 115 miles and speeds ranging up to 4,400 mph. However, due to technical problems, the spacecraft carrying Ham reached an altitude of 157 miles and a speed of 5,857 mph, and landed 422 miles downrange rather than the anticipated 290 miles. Ham performed well during his flight, and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean 60 miles from the recovery ship.”