For Researchers

For a good introduction to NASA and Project Mercury, we recommend the following classic histories and accounts:

Carpenter, M. Scott, et al., ed. by John Dille, We Seven (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962), available through Amazon.com booksellers, this book was a bestseller when it was first published and remains one of the best first-person accounts of Project Mercury. A must for any spaceflight history library. And, yes, the astronauts themselves actually wrote their chapters.

Dethloff, Henry C. “Suddenly Tomorrow Came . . .” A History of the Johnson Space Center, 1957–1990. NASA SP-4307, 1993. Click here to http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/suddenly_tomororw/suddenly.htm”>view book online.This history has a good account of the 1959 Life magazine contract with the Project Mercury astronauts.

Gilruth, Robert Rowe, NASM oral history. Dr. Gilruth headed up the NACA’s Pilotless Aircraft Research Division in Langley, Va. He became director of the Space Task Group in 1958 as NACA morphed into NASA, where, at Langley, the Project Mercury astronauts reported to him. President John F. Kennedy consulted the research administrator at length before making his seminal decision to embark on the Apollo program. Use the following link to learn more about JFK and the space program.

Gilruth’s invaluable six-part oral history, conducted by historians at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM), may be read online at Gilruth oral history.

Glennan, T. Keith. The Birth of NASA: The Diary of T. Keith Glennan. Ed. by J. D. Hunley. NASA SP-4105, 1993. Click here to view book online.

Grimwood, James M. Project Mercury: A Chronology. NASA SP-4001, 1963. Out of print. click here to read online.

Hansen, James R. Engineer in Charge: A History of the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory, 1917–1958. NASA SP-4305, 1987. This book is also available online.

Link, Mae Mills. Space Medicine in Project Mercury. NASA SP-4003, 1965. Out of print. Click here to read online.

Roland, Alex. Model Research: The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, 1915–1958. NASA SP-4103, 1985. This book is also available online.

Swenson, Loyd S., Jr., James M. Grimwood, and Charles C. Alexander. This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury. NASA SP-4201, 1966, reprinted 1999. This book is available online.

(Most NASA publications may be purchased by contacting NASA HQ history office; see NASA publications.

Related NASA Publications

Talay, Theodore A. “The Flight of Big Joe,” Space Frontiers: The Resource Journal of Spaceflight, Sept.–Oct. 1989.

———. “Life Index,” first published in Space Frontiers: The Resource Journal of Spaceflight, 1987. This index is a valuable guide to all LIFE magazine reporting on Project Mercury. (Click on the “LUCE – LIFE” tab to the right for more on LIFE magazine.)

———. “Life Index,” first published in Space Frontiers: The Resource Journal of Spaceflight, .