Liberty Bell 7 being prepared for U.S. tour

(Hutchinson-AP) -- From space, to the bottom of the Atlantic, to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson. <br><br>What a trip it's been for the Liberty Bell Seven spacecraft --and now

Monday, March 20th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

(Hutchinson-AP) -- From space, to the bottom of the Atlantic, to the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson.

What a trip it's been for the Liberty Bell Seven spacecraft --and now the capsule is being prepared for a three-year tour across the U-S.

In mid-April, it will leave Hutchinson and join other space artifacts as part of an exhibit called "The Lost Spacecraft: Liberty Bell 7 Recovered."

The craft, piloted by astronaut Gus Grissom, took its famous 15-minute suborbital flight on July 21st, 1961. It sank after splashdown and remained on the ocean floor for 38 years, until its recovery last July.

Since then, a restoration crew has been hard at work restoring the capsule.

The first stop on the tour: The Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.