A well-executed suborbital flight would buy the United States a little breathing room; but orbital flight—the end game of Project Mercury—was infinitely more complex. Successful orbital flight required the engineers to adjust the tennis ball machine’s chute to the correct angle and arm its launcher with enough force to send the ball up through the atmosphere and into an orbit around Earth on a path so precisely specified, so true, that when it came back down through the atmosphere, it was still within spitting distance of the navy’s waiting racket.
