Welcome to AirNManky's Cabinet of Curiosity's, a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm

and Mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosity's.

From the mid-1950s to 1975, the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a major

conflict.

Not a literal battle, mind you, but a figurative one.

It was a race for the stars, for the moon, and for technological superiority.

A space race led to countless discoveries.

Both the Americans and the Russians launched unmanned satellites, planetary probes, and sent

astronauts into orbit.

Soviet pilot Yuri Gagarin was the first human to enter outer space in April of 1961, but

the United States wasn't far behind.

One month later, Alan Shepard did his country proud and became the first American in space.

In the years following Shepard's launch, NASA worked on a second human-powered spaceflight

called Mercury Redstone 4.

The stars developed a small spacecraft they dubbed the Liberty Bell 7 to be steered by

Air Force pilots and astronaut Virgil Gus Grism.

The craft was designed to be carried by the rocket with Grism inside before breaking off

on its own.

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