NASA had finally succeeded in placing a human being in space.  They did it twice.  Now it was time to see how a human would react to orbiting the Earth.  That was one of the main goals of the third manned Project Mercury flight.  Guess what another objective was.  To be able to find the capsule when it landed.

That sounds kind of funny.  When you think about it though, it makes sense.  The first two manned missions had rockets go up and come down.  This mission had the rocket go up and then circle the entire Earth three times before coming down.  There was definitely the possibility of the capsule coming down somewhere where nobody would see it.  The capsule did come down short of where it was planned.  That was because the scientists did not figure on weight loss due to used fuel.  Click here to see a map of where John Glenn landed! You will have to zoom around to find land!