1959: The first seven astronauts selected to participate in NASA’s Project Mercury are introduced by the space agency at press conference in Washington.

Dubbed the “Mercury Seven” by the press, those chosen were John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Gordon Cooper, Scott Carpenter, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra and Donald “Deke” Slayton.

Project Mercury was the United States’ first manned space-flight program. Its mission: to put an American in orbit around the Earth. Shepard was the first member of the fraternity into space, aboard Freedom 7. Although reaching an altitude of 116.5 statute miles and attaining a top speed of 5,134 mph, he did not complete an orbit. That honor would fall to Glenn 11 months later.

All the astronauts, with the exception of Slayton who was grounded because of a previously undiscovered heart condition, flew in Project Mercury. Grissom would be killed in 1967 with two other astronauts when a flash fire consumed their capsule during training for the first Apollo mission.

The story of the “Mercury Seven” was recounted in The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe, which was later made into an entertaining, if rather fanciful, movie by the same name.

(Source: Various)