Claim: John Glenn was trained to pilot a spacecraft.

The Mercury Seven were the group of seven Mercury astronauts announced by NASA on April 9 , 1959 . They are also referred to as the Original Seven or Astronaut Group 1 . They piloted the manned spaceflights of the Mercury program from May 1961 to May 1963 . These seven original American astronauts were Scott Carpenter , Gordon Cooper , John Glenn , Gus Grissom , Wally Schirra , Alan Shepard , and Deke Slayton .   Members of the group flew on all classes of NASA manned orbital spacecraft of the 20th century -- Mercury , Gemini , Apollo , and the Space Shuttle . Gus Grissom died in 1967 , in the Apollo 1 fire . The others all survived past retirement from service . John Glenn went on to become a U.S. senator , and flew on the Shuttle 36 years later to become the oldest person to fly in space . He was the last living member of the class when he died in 2016 .