After being selected as one of the Mercury 7 astronauts in 1959, Gus Grissom became the second man in space, piloting the Mercury-Redstone 4 mission on July 21, 1961. The end of this flight resulted in the space capsule sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Previously-unseen footage from The Real Right Stuff depicts the tense post-flight press conference. Stream the original documentary now on Disney . | National Geographic TV

On July 21, 1961, NASA astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom became the second American in space when he piloted the Mercury capsule Liberty Bell 7. After a successful suborbital flight and splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean, a prematurely jettisoned hatch caused the capsule to flood and unexpectedly sink, disappearing nearly three miles below the surface. Grissom was rescued (and was later recovered by Intrepid after his Gemini III mission in 1965), but for decades, Liberty Bell 7 remained one of Americ