# Project Adam
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[[File:Jupiter c pad.jpg|thumb|right|A [Jupiter-C](/source/Jupiter-C), the proposed launch vehicle for Project Adam]]
'''Project Adam''' was a proposed plan by the [United States Army](/source/United_States_Army) for a manned, [suborbital](/source/suborbital_flight) rocket flight. It was developed in 1958, in parallel with the United States Air Force's [Project Manhigh](/source/Project_Manhigh), and was initially called ''Project Man Very High''. The twin aims were to gather scientific data on high-altitude flight and to enhance national prestige in the wake of the successful launch of the Soviet Union's [Sputnik 1](/source/Sputnik_1). A further goal was to investigate the possibility of troop transport by ballistic missile.[{{cite web |title=Space Medicine In Project Mercury |url=https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4003/ch3-3.htm |website=NASA |access-date=2 July 2023}}]
== History ==
The plan involved using off-the-shelf hardware to send a passenger on a steep ballistic flight from [Cape Canaveral](/source/Cape_Canaveral_Space_Force_Station), with a splashdown in the North Atlantic. The launch vehicle would have been a modified Redstone [Jupiter-C](/source/Jupiter-C). The astronaut would have been housed in a capsule modelled on the USAF's Manhigh gondola, modified for a water landing, with no provision for manual control. At the apogee of flight the astronaut would have experienced six minutes of weightlessness.[{{cite web |title=Project Adam: or, How the US Could Have Beat the Soviets in Putting a Man Into Space |url=https://www.spaceflighthistories.com/post/project-adam |website=SpaceFlightHistories |date=9 June 2020 |access-date=2 July 2023}}] The first manned flight would have been preceded by a series of flights involving [primates](/source/Monkeys_and_apes_in_space).[{{cite web |title=This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury |url=https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4201/ch4-7.htm |website=NASA |access-date=2 July 2023}}]
Project Adam was devised by the [Army Ballistic Missile Agency](/source/Army_Ballistic_Missile_Agency), and was proposed to the [Advanced Research Projects Agency](/source/DARPA) on 11 July 1958. However although Secretary to the Army [Wilber M. Brucker](/source/Wilber_M._Brucker) backed the project, largely as a psychological demonstration, Deputy Secretary of Defense [Donald A. Quarles](/source/Donald_A._Quarles) believed that it had "about the same technical value as the circus stunt of shooting a young lady from a cannon".