Mercury is not often thought of as a heavyweight planet. He travels very close to the sun and is almost continuously out shone. Venus, mars, and the moon all excite intense interest. The outer planets all get their share but the sun rules the lion zodiac sign Leo and is the undisputed star. Almost everyone knows their sun sign. It is just difficult for Mercury to get the attention other planets and dwarf planets like Ceres and Pluto receive. On December 17, 1903 at the Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina at 10:35 am, Mercury lifted a canvas and wood machine into the air. It was small but it represented a mountain. He completed the feat four times that day. Appropriately for a sun lover like himself, he accomplished this on a beach. A planetary muscle beach moment.
This event horoscope is very simple. Capricorn Mercury is on the degree “in a sun lit home domesticated birds sing joyously”. Domesticating birds is an apt description of human flight. The beautiful women Venus and Pallas are standing together in his sight as his motivation. Across from him is Cancer Neptune – the coast guard lifesaving crew, prepared to take the pictures. Most of the other planets are standing back on either side to give Mercury room to maneuver.
Flight had eluded man for millennia but Mercury had the right stuff to accomplish it. A keen observer of Sagittarius, he used his depth of knowledge of Sagittarius’ flying arrows, two brothers working as twins, and his curiosity toward mechanical motion machines to lift the Wright Flyer. At the fourth and final flight, the Wright flyer flew 852 feet in a flight of 59 seconds. The flying machine was such a good flyer a strong gust flipped it over ending the day’s flights even though the crew tried to hold it down.
After dreaming so long of flight over sixty years later, on July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. A piece of the Wright Flyer was with them. Apollo 11 followed previous spaceflight missions; Project Mercury and Project Gemini. It was carried out of Earth’s atmosphere by a Saturn rocket. It was small but it represented another mountain. At the Kill Devil Hills Mercury roared and man landed on the moon. Not such a lightweight after all.