NASA and Project Mercury - Prologue:
The Cold War, Sputnik, and the Birth of NASA

Project Mercury, and the advent of NASA itself, is best understand in the context of the cold war—the epic contest for supremacy between the United States and the Soviet Union in the years following World War II.

With the Soviet launch of Sputni (October 4, 1957), tensions between the two superpowers mounted dramatically, causing the United States to respond by creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) with a congressional act signed into law on July 28, 1958. The new space agency had, however, inherited its core mission, ethos, and staff from the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), a government agency that dated to the eve of World War I with venerable research centers (called labs) based in Langley, Virginia; Cleveland, Ohio; and Mountain View, Calif.—Langley, Lewis, and Ames.

The creation of a civilian space agency represented, among other things, the Eisenhower administration’s measured, nonmilitary response to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik, a feat perceived in the West as a threat to the primacy of the United States and its free world allies in a global struggle against the threat of communism. The vaunted Soviet space program, off to a head start with the first Sputnik, went on to log a number of spectacular space firsts, among them the successful launch of the first person in space, Yuri Gagarin, on April 12, 1961, while NASA played catch-up well into the 1960s.

The U.S.-Soviet superpower contest in space became a kind of proxy R&D war, which the United States eventually won in July 1969 when it landed men on the moon and returned them safely to earth (the Apollo program).

Project Mercury

U.S. manned spaceflight began, however, not with the fabled lunar expeditions but rather with the solo missions piloted by Project Mercury astronauts, chosen in April 1959. The objectives of Project Mercury had been laid out laid out the year before:

• To orbit a manned spacecraft around earth;
• To investigate man's ability to function in space;
• To recover both man and spacecraft safely.

The Project Mercury Astronauts

The seven military pilots—all of them men—were introduced to the public on April 9, 1959, at a press conference at the Dolley Madison House in Washington, D.C. Sometimes called the original, or Group 1, astronauts, they were, in alphabetical order: Lt. M. Scott Carpenter (USN); Capt. .Leroy G. (Gordo) Cooper (USAF), Lt. Col. John H. Glenn (USMC); Capt. Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom (USAF), Lt. Cmdr. Walter (Wally) M. Schirra (USN), Lt Cmdr. Alan B. Shepard (USN), and Capt. Donald K. (Deke) Slayton (USAF). Although they were military officers, normally in uniform, NASA ordained that the astronauts would wear civilian clothes in the course of their duties at the space agency. In fact all military personnel, regardless of rank, would wear civvies while on loan to the space agency from their parent commands.

The astronauts reported immediately to Langley, Virginia, where they were assigned specialty areas that reflected their particular aviation and engineering backgrounds. Because of his background in celestial navigation and airborne electronics, Carpenter took responsibility for communication and navigation. Cooper assumed liaison duties for the development of the Redstone booster, while Slayton had the same liaison duties, but for the Atlas. Glenn worked on cockpit design and layout for the Mercury capsule, while Grissom focused on the various spacecraft control systems.

Life support systems and spacesuit design became Schirra’s responsibility, while Shepard took on tracking and recovery operations. The men also focused on individual training, physical conditioning, ground control, and spacecraft familiarization. In time, flight assignments were made and modified. (Please use the tabs at the right for fuller discussions of the different Mercury missions.)

The Missions: 1959–1963

Lt Cmdr. Alan B. Shepard (USN), was assigned the United States’ first manned spaceflight, flying Freedom 7 (MR-3)—a ballistic flight powered by the Mercury-Redstone rocket. Capt. Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom (USAF) flew the follow-on suborbital mission, aboard Liberty Bell 7 (MR-4).

Lt. Col. John H. Glenn (USMC) was assigned the first manned orbital mission, flying Friendship 7 (Mercury-Atlas 7, or MA-6) three times around the earth. Lt. M. Scott Carpenter (USN) piloted the country’s second manned orbital mission, the country’s first science mission, aboard Aurora 7 (MA-7) Lt. Cmdr. Walter (Wally) M. Schirra (USN) flew the penultimate Mercury mission—six-circuits of the planet—aboard Sigma 7 (MA-8). Finally, Capt. .Leroy G. (Gordo) Cooper (USAF) piloted Faith 7(MA-9) in a daylong, 22-orbit mission.

Capt. Donald K. (Deke) Slayton (USAF), grounded in 1962 with a heart condition, was never assigned a Mercury flight.

An Epilogue

Of the original astronaut corps, only Alan Shepard, the first American in space, would one day place his feet on the moon. Grissom died in 1967. Glenn resigned from NASA after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Carpenter was sidelined permanently by a motorbike injury (see Sealab, for information about the 1964 accident). Schirra would go on to command both Gemini and Apollo flights but was never assigned a lunar mission. Cooper flew once more, for a Gemini mission with Group 2 astronaut Pete Conrad, and served as backup commander for the Apollo 10 lunar-orbiting mission before he too retired from the astronaut corps.

Deke Slayton, deprived of flight status for more than a decade, finally climbed atop the great Saturn rocket on July 15, 1975, for a joint U.S-Soviet docking mission. A fitting bookend for the Mercury-era astronaut, selected so long before, at the height of the cold war.

At liftoff that summer day in 1975, there was not a dry eye in mission control.

As of this writing, in early 2008, two Project Mercury astronauts are still alive: Scott Carpenter and John Glenn.