Acknowledgements

This book owes much to those who so willingly assisted in its compilation. In virtually every instance, my request for information or material to quote was met with a positive response.

Sincere thanks are therefore extended to helpers and participants Mike Andrew, John Barteluce, Bob Bell, Rick Boos, Lou Chinal, Dean Conger, Kate Doolan, Lowell Grissom, Donald Harter, Thomas Henderson, Ed Hengeveld, Roger Hiemstra, Jerry Holman (Materium Brush Beryllium and Composites), Philip Kempland, Dale Kreitner, James Lewis, H. H. (Luge) Luetjen, Dr. Robert H. Moser, Lawrence (Larry) McGlynn, Earl Mullins, Otto Preske, Eddie Pugh, Earl Robb, Jerry Roberts, Scott Sacknoff (Quest maga­zine), Ross Smith, Cameron Stark, Charles Tynan, Jr., and Charlie Walker. As well, Dianne Blick, Jim Remar and Shannon Whetzel from the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center were of wonderful assistance in locating and supplying rare illustrative material. Other photographs came from two sources, both of whom have – as always – helped out by pro­viding me with clear, high-resolution images; J. L. Pickering of Retro Space Images (www. retrospaceimages. com), and Joachim Becker at Spacefacts (www. spacefacts. de). Special thanks to the man who located and salvaged the Liberty Bell 7 spacecraft, Curt Newport, for his interest in – and much appreciated help with – this book.

One of the greatest and long-serving resources of all has been the amazing and immensely popular website, collectSPACE (www. collectspace. com) , under the inspira­tional and erudite administration of Robert Pearlman. Robert, and the wonderfully eclec­tic, knowledgeable band of space enthusiasts who are contributors in many ways to this space website (a daily imperative) have always proved of immense and trustworthy assis­tance to me, and I am continually grateful to Robert for his dedication and 24/7 input into this website and to the ongoing saga of space exploration.

Keith Scala deserves special mention for contributing so readily to this book. In seeking information for this book I came across an article written by Keith for the quarterly space­flight magazine, Quest. Published in the spring of 2000, his article “The Future of Liberty Bell 7” was so well constructed and written that I asked him if he would be willing to update the article for inclusion in this book. Happily, he has done so, and I am grateful for his superb contribution.

There were also those who were involved in the editing and production of this book. Endless thanks once again to my esteemed editor for this and past books, David M. Harland. A gifted spaceflight author in his own right, he not only completed a monumental effort in both editing this book and weeding out some pesky errors, but went out of his way and job description to ensure that it went through the production process when problems arose. To a friend of so many decades, Francis French, continuing thanks for going through the draft manuscript as a final check of the facts and my often poor understanding of cer­tain Americanese.

My ongoing appreciation to Clive Horwood and his team from Praxis in England for their support of my past, current and future work, and to Maury Solomon, Editor of Physics and Astronomy, and Assistant Editor Nora Rawn, both at Springer in New York. I recently had the great pleasure of meeting and personally thanking Jim Wilkie, who always provides bril­liant cover artwork for my books. He is a genius at what he does.

If I have missed thanking anyone associated with this work, please forgive me, but kindly accept my sincere appreciation for helping me to put together this story of an extraordinary man on an amazing, pioneering space mission in an outstanding Mercury spacecraft he called Liberty Bell 7.