On July 21, 1961, Virgil "Gus" Grissom made history as the second Mercury astronaut launched into space. Grissom's 16-minute suborbital flight in the Liberty Bell 7 space capsule was a success ~~ but a series of surprises after splashdown nearly cost Grissom his life and left NASA's space capsule sinking to the ocean floor.

After Grissom splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean 300 miles from Cape Canaveral, Liberty Bell 7's explosive-powered hatch jettisoned prematurely, flooding the capsule and Grissom's spacesuit. A Marine rescue helicopter, unable to lift the waterlogged capsule, had to let it go. The Liberty Bell 7 quickly sank out of sight. Grissom was rescued in a valiant effort, but his spacecraft remained lost at the bottom of the Atlantic ~~ the only manned spacecraft that NASA never recovered.

Nearly 40 years later, the Discovery Channel funded a Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center expedition to locate, recover, and restore this lost part of American space history.

This pressure fitting (valve) is embedded in wedge-shaped, custom-made acrylic with text on the obverse reading: "This is an original component from the Liberty Bell 7 Mercury spacecraft, recovered from the Atlantic Ocean on July 20, 1999, from a depth of 16,043 feet."

On the reverse appears: "This Liberty Bell 7 component was removed during an extensive restoration project conducted on the spacecraft by the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, Kansas. The item could not be reinstated in the spacecraft because of the corroded condition of the component to which it was originally attached. Proceeds derived from making these historic artifacts publicly available will help offset the costs of the Cosmosphere's Liberty Bell 7 restoration and exhibition program."