A Technical History of the Mercury Programme

Extract

In the light of what was now known, the only change that might have been made in the programme would have been the elimination of the animal flight; actually, systems for manned flight were ready to “go” at that time. The lecturer considered that the ballistic part of the programme would still have been needed to get the people ready for this sort of thing as well as for checking the systems control and for developing the recovery technique. The sea landing approach was chosen because it was a simpler system to develop within the brief time schedule available and would provide the lowest impact loads on the pilot and spacecraft alike.