Mercury Seven

The Mercury Seven were the group of seven astronauts selected to fly spacecraft for Project Mercury. They are also known as the Original Seven and Astronaut Group 1.

Their names were publicly announced by NASA on April 9, 1959.  These seven original American astronauts were Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton. 

All of the Mercury Seven eventually flew in space. They piloted the six spaceflights of the Mercury program that had an astronaut on board from May 1961 to May 1963, and members of the group flew on all of the NASA human spaceflight programs of the 20th century—Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the Space Shuttle.

References

Category:NASA
Category:American astronauts
Category:1959 establishments in the United States