Creating a Mercury capsule

On Sunday, 16 July 1939, noted scientist Albert Einstein famously sent a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to explore nuclear weaponry and, as a result, established the United States on the road to the creation of the first atomic weapons ever used to devastating effect in a military conflict.

That very same day an industrial giant was also created when the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation was founded by James Smith McDonnell. Based in St. Louis, Missouri with a startup work force of just thirteen, including McDonnell, it eventually became a leading American aerospace company best known for developing and build­ing some of the finest and most potent fighter jets ever to take to the skies, including the legendary and long-serving F4 Phantom. To those early workers, the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation became more simply known to them by the acronym MAC, and its founder – understandably, and fondly – as Mr. Mac.

Many years later, when McDonnell Douglas merged with the Boeing Company, a new advertising motto was adopted: “Forever New Frontiers.” Those three words not only envisaged an exciting future in aviation, but reflected back most appropriately to the glory days of the McDonnell organization.