There’s a lot going on in this #spacegif, and most of it is very wrong. So let’s talk about the story behind the failure of the Mercury-Redstone 1 launch. #AvGeek #Spacegeek Mercury-Redstone 1 was intended as the first unmanned test flight to validate the Mercury capsule and the Mercury-Redstone launch vehicle that would eventually be used to launch Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom’s suborbital spaceflights.