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The Mercury Seven were the group of seven astronauts selected to fly spacecraft for Project Mercury. They are also referred to as the Original Seven and Astronaut Group 1 . Their names were publicly announced by NASA on April 9, 1959: Scott Carpenter , Gordon Cooper , John Glenn , Gus Grissom , Wally Schirra , Alan Shepard , and Deke Slayton .
L. Gordon Cooper Jr. – from the Mercury Seven; veteran of Mercury Faith 7 and commander of Gemini 5, was replaced as Apollo 14 commander by Alan Shepard and resigned from NASA in 1970. Clifton C. "C.C." Williams Jr. – from Group 3; was named as Schweickart's Lunar Module Pilot backup crew, but was killed when the T-38 jet he was flying ...
The program, which took its name from Roman mythology, cost $2.68 billion (adjusted for inflation). [1] [n 1] The astronauts were collectively known as the "Mercury Seven", and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a "7" by its pilot. The Space Race began with the 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1. This came as a shock to the ...
Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom (April 3, 1926 – January 27, 1967) was an American engineer and pilot in the United States Air Force, as well as one of the original men, the Mercury Seven, selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for Project Mercury, a program to train and launch astronauts into outer space.
Carpenter, along with the other six Mercury astronauts, oversaw the development of the Mercury spacecraft. [41] Each had a specialty; Carpenter's was the onboard navigational equipment. [ 42 ] He served as backup pilot on Mercury-Atlas 6 for Glenn, [ 43 ] who flew the first U.S. orbital mission aboard Friendship 7 in February 1962.
Donald Kent "Deke" Slayton (March 1, 1924 – June 13, 1993) was an American Air Force pilot, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts. He went on to become NASA's first Chief of the Astronaut Office and Director of Flight Crew Operations, responsible for NASA crew assignments.
Walter Marty Schirra Jr. (/ ʃ ɜː ˈ r ɑː / shur-AH; March 12, 1923 – May 3, 2007) was an American naval aviator, test pilot, and NASA astronaut.In 1959, he became one of the original seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, which was the United States' first effort to put humans into space.
All were married except for Williams, who became the first bachelor astronaut. Their average age at the time of selection was 31, compared with 34.5 for the Mercury Seven and 32.5 for the Next Nine. They were slightly taller, at 70.1 inches (178 cm), compared with 69.79 inches (177.3 cm) for the Seven and 69.94 inches (177.6 cm) for the Nine.