The experimental, creative, and at times imaginative nature of the Mercury program has always fascinated me. The program and the decision that preceded it answer a totally unique question: what do you do when you suddenly need to put a man in space and you have no previous experience to build off of? (Left: the Mercury astronauts inspect a Mercury model. Front, L-R: Grissom, Carpenter, Slayton, Cooper. Back, L-R: Shepard, Schirra, Glenn. 1959)
Gene Kranz, who served as a flight director for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, recalls in his autobiography that the Mercury program controllers were writing the procedures manuals for the program while the missions unfolded. Engineers, scientists, and flight controllers couldn't anticipate what would happen to a man in space, but they could document events as they unfolded. The knowledge gained in the first missions affected those that followed, ultimately enabling NASA to compose a wealth of knowledge on manned spaceflight.
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