Receiving a patent generally signals a major milestone. As an exclusive right granted for an invention, be it a product or a process, it usually denotes a new way of doing something, thereby becoming important. In the case of the Mercury space capsule, however, the patent came closer to the end.
Project Mercury was conceived as a NASA programme to put the first American astronauts in space. Named after a Roman god who was very fast, the project notched up many successes. At the centre of this success was the Mercury space capsule.
