ROCKET

 ROCKET

The sign in Rocket Park in Flushing Meadows

Warns you that it's a real Atlas rocket

In fact it's an intercontinental missile

The USA needed something fast to get

A human into orbit to compete with

The USSR during the Cold War Space Race

A year earlier April 12, 1961 

(International Day of Human Space Flight)

Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin

Had become the first human to enter space

And orbit the Earth

Since the payload was small for the 

This particular intercontinental missile

The  capsule put on top didn't leave much

Extra room for John Glenn who was chosen

For the mission  to become 

The first American to orbit the Earth 

On February 20, 1962

The 260,000 pound Mercury-Atlas D rocket

Fueled by kerosene and liquid oxygen

Took off sending Glenn 

In his cramped Friendship 7 capsule

(Rocket Park has an exact-size replica)

Into space for 4 hours and 55 minutes

Where he circled the globe three times

An important step towards the United States

Landing on the moon in 1969