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Glite Dictionary
Project Mercury

Project Mercury

1 5.9
The first American program to send a person into orbit around Earth
  • proper noun
  • US
translation icon : Proyecto Mercury
  • While working on the Project Mercury manned-flight program, he and two coworkers received a patent for a manned reentry vehicle for planned lunar missions.

Examples

  • John was thrilled to be selected as an astronaut for Project Mercury, the United States' first manned space program.

  • In 1961, Project Mercury began with the goal of sending astronauts into orbit around Earth.

  • The success of Project Mercury paved the way for future advancements in human space exploration.

Synonyms

Mercury program
vsProject Mercury
4.8

The first United States project to send a person into orbit around Earth

is the same program but uses a different official name

Surface Forms

Project Mercury main

Morphology

project + Mercury

The word 'project' clearly signals a planned undertaking and 'Mercury' points to the planet or a name, so a learner could infer it is a project associated with 'Mercury' in some way. However, the specific historical referent—the first U.S. manned spaceflight program—is a conventionalized proper name and not predictable from the constituents alone, so the meaning is only partially recoverable.

Etymology

Project Mercury was named after the old god Mercury, famous as a quick 'messenger', and the small planet Mercury, both ideas of speed and travel. That's why the name fit the first US program to send a person into orbit.