Mercury Seven: who were America's first astronauts?
Donald K. “Deke” Slayton The Mercury 7 astronauts. Left to right: Gus Grissom, Deke Slayton, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Alan Shepard and Wally Schirra. Photo By Hank Walker/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images What was NASA’s Project Mercury? NASA announced Project Mercury on 7 October 1958 as a new programme that would set in motion a boom in human spaceflight for the USA. The project’s goals were to put a crewed spacecraft into orbit around Earth, observe and collect data on the mission, and then return the human crew to Earth safely. At this point, very li...
Source: skyatnightmagazine.com