Go For Launch: Mercury is a solo passion project by developer Joe Chisholm, published under the First Time Games label, and it shows every hallmark of what a dedicated individual with deep subject knowledge and genuine craft can produce. Released into Early Access in October 2017 after a successful Kickstarter and indie showcase run — including a finalist position at the VRLO 2017 Most Promising New Indie Developer award — it reached full release on Steam in July 2021. The goal, stated plainly on the Steam page, is to be as authentic and accurate as possible: not a dramatisation or a stylised approximation, but a genuine simulation of what it felt like to sit inside a Mercury capsule on top of a Redstone or Atlas rocket in the early 1960s.

Every spacecraft interior has been individually researched and modelled. The switches, instruments, and layout of Freedom 7 are not generic cockpit assets; they are the specific configuration Alan Shepard encountered on May 5, 1961. The same care has been applied to each subsequent Mercury mission, tracking the design changes and loadout differences between vehicles as the programme evolved through six crewed flights. Players work through the pre-launch checklist, experience the vibration and roar of ignition, and ascend through the atmosphere to a full-scale recreation of Earth from low orbit. The experience is explicitly educational — the Steam description flags it as suitable for schools and colleges to teach astronomy, spaceflight, and history.