Photo showing the recovery of Alan Shepard and the Freedom 7 capsule after the first US manned space mission. 148767 flew from the USS Lake Champlain. The Sikorsky was later passed to the Thai air force. Photo from: The Michael B. Gordon Mercury Photographs Collection / The Museum of Flight

Photo must have been taken on 12 July 1957, the day of the first US presidential flight in a helicopter in a simulated evacuation of the government to Camp David. Eisenhower took off from the South Lawn of the White House in a Bell H-13J, chosen for the type's safety record. Six H-19, H-21 and HUS-1 helicopters operated from The Ellipse. HMX-1 was then an experimental unit. 143973 delivered in May 1957, destroyed in Vietnam on 31 January 1968. Photo by: Paul Schutzer / Life

The second American in space, astronaut Gus Grissom nearly drowned after splashdown in his capsule Liberty Bell 7. Other photos show that he was eventually hoisted up by another HUS-1, ET-30. Photo from: Life