AN ORIGINAL TECHNICAL DRAWING REPRESENTING THE VARIOUS STAGES OF THE DEPLOYMENT OF A ROGALLO WING

Pencil on graph paper, 17 by 11 inches, dated 23 March 1961, a few annotations in blue pencil; some soiling and toning.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, U.S. aerospace manufacturers worked on parachute designs to be used in space capsule recovery. For the Project Mercury capsule, NASA considered the Rogallo wing to replace the traditional round parachute when they were experiencing development problems that would prove to be temporary. Later, the Rogallo wing was the initial choice for the Project Gemini capsule, but development problems ultimately led to it being scrapped.