i'd like you, if you would quickly, to just discuss your memories of gus grissom, your relationship to him and anything else you might add about gus. >> yes, gus and i were close and he was a no more dedicated person than gus. he really was a, really was a tiger at working at things and in keeping in shape. we were good friends. in houston, we built homes that were not too far apart. scott carpenter and i were side by side and back on a street right just about 100 yards away was gus grissom, wally, all of us in sort of little area there. and that was really a tragic loss. it came as -- i think looking back on it, obviously, it was a mistake to have 100% oxygen environment, because all you've got to remember is your high school physics where you had a beaker of oxygen and you had just a little red-hot wire and you dipped the wire in there, and remember the wire metal burned when you put it in there. well, the mistake that was made on that as near as they can determine was they had some paper inside there. maybe the paper shouldn't have been in there. and a spark came out from they think

with alan shepard learning about weightlessness and gus grissom with the space gravity as wally schirraacecraft control. three years of engineering skill and scientific experimentation have gone into this historic atlas launching. its component parts have come from countless sources, devitzed and fabricated by many thousands of technicians in hundreds of united states cities. and this, the motive power, carefully raised to position on its gantry. this, the atlas. with power to develop 360,000 pounds of thrust, with capability to swiftly lift the spacecraft and its passenger as high as 160 miles and inject into orbit at 17,500 miles an hour. and now the word is "go" as the spacecraft is lifted into its position atop the atlas. this spacecraft, six feet across at its widest heat shield end, ten feet tall, built to withstand heat shield temperatures of 3,000 degrees fahrenheit as the winds rushed by at more than 15,000 miles an hour -- as the astronaut prepares for space flight, for adventure into outer space. ♪ mercury control waits and watches with the atlas standing ready to throb into

of oklahoma, virgil "gus" grissom of indiana, alan spep arrested of new hampshire, and donald slayton of wisconsin. john glenn later wrote of the original astronauts, the world was at the door of a new age. we were the people who have been chosen to make the first steps across the threshold. when president kennedy took office, he continued our nation's pursuit into space in the race against the russians. he said our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security require us to solve these mysteries and to solve them for the good of all humankind. alan shepard piloted the freedom seven in may, 1961 in the first space shot. gus grissom piloted liberty bell seven in 1961 to prove that americans could launch humans into sub orbital flight. the russians successfully launched their astronaut into orbit around the earth. america's response was left to a decorated marine aviator born in cambridge, ohio, who grew up a few miles away in new concord. on the morning of february 20, 50 years ago this week, the eyes of the world were on john glenn who was tasked with piloting o