Chrysler Aerospace artist Cecelia Bibby paints Friendship 7 on NASA astronaut John Glenn's Mercury spacecraft. All the astronauts chose the names of their capsules; Glenn went a step further by insisting the person who developed the artwork personally apply the paint. It was a controversial move; women were rarely allowed on the launchpad.
Right Stuff, rough stuff: The Mercury 7 astronauts during survival training exercises at Stead Air Force Base in Nevada. From left: Gordon Cooper, Scott Carpenter, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, Walter 'Wally' Schirra and Donald 'Deke' Slayton. Physical fitness was a key requirement for the astronaut program; Clayton (far right) would be the only one of the Mercury 7 to not fly on the program, and was grounded before his flight due to an irregular heartbeat. He would later fly in the Apollo program.
A cutaway diagram of the Mercury capsule. Modifications were made over the course of the program, but the basics remained the same: it was always a tight ship. Later Gemini capsules would have capacity for two, with the Apollo capsule able to house three crew. All were mounted on the nose of a staged rocket; a design gradually refined into the Saturn V rocket that would take humans to the moon.
Astronaut John Glenn examines the logo for the name 'Friendship 7' to be painted on the outside of his Mercury spacecraft. The astronauts all named their own capsules, with the suffix '7' relating to the seven scheduled missions.
On May 5 1961, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard – aboard his 'Freedom 7' capsule – to became the first American in space. His historic flight, illustrated by this trajectory diagram, lasted 15 minutes, 28 seconds. He was beaten to space by Yuri Gagarin of the USSR, by 23 days.
John Glenn inside the Mercury Procedures Trainer, Langley, Virginia. Simulations were critical both for the astronauts' handling of the spaceship, and the environment of the capsule under the stresses of launch and re-entry. As such every conceivable scenario was simulated beforehand.
John Glenn in 1960. At the time of his first orbital flight in 1962, Glenn was the relatively advanced age of 40 – the cutoff age for entry into the Mercury program. He would later become the oldest astronaut in space aboard the Discovery space shuttle in 1998, aged 77.
NASA 'computer' Katherine Johnson, who would run checks on computer-generated figures for the Mercury space program. Computers were still in their infancy by the time of the Mercury program, and temperamental – hence John Glenn insisting on Johnson's confirmation of their calculations. “If she says they're good, then I'm ready to go,” he once said of Johnson's work. Johnson would later work on the Apollo program; she died in 2020.
The Mercury 7 astronauts dressed in their 'Mercury suits.' Developed from high altitude U.S. Navy suits, the pressurised aluminiumised nylon and neoprene suits had to be custom-made for each astronaut. Back row, left to right: Alan Shepard, Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, Gordon Cooper; Front row, left to right: Wally Schirra, Donald ‘Deke’ Slayton, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter.
The astronauts pose with a mockup of the rocket stages assembled with the capsule in the nose. The Mercury missions were named according to the rocket that propelled them to space – either Mercury-Redstone, or Mercury-Atlas.
The Mercury astronauts enjoyed a degree of fame incongruous to service personnel at the time. As the first of their kind in the new word of spaceflight, they carried with them the hopes of the embryonic NASA, and the ambition of their president; taxpayer support was critical, hence many public appearances – such as this 4th July 1962 showcase in Houston, Texas.
Astronauts in simulated weightless flight in C-131 aircraft flying 'zero-G' above Wright Air Development Centre, Ohio, 1959. Conducted in the buffered hull while the aircraft followed a parabolic trajectory – performing a dive, then a climb, then a dive – the exercise resulted in periods resembling weightlessness. The aim was to test whether astronauts could perform tasks while in zero gravity, and also to test their physical response.
Testing the Mercury capsule in a full wind tunnel. The capsule had to perform rigorously in a variety of manoeuvres – from withstanding the speed of takeoff, to enduring the heat of re-entry – so various tests were performed to fine-tune its design. Re-entry was a particular concern; the back of the astronaut's head was just inches from the heat shield.
Astronaut Scott Carpenter secures his life raft during training for water exit prior to his Mercury-Atlas 7 flight in 1962. Due to the unpredictability of conditions and landing sites, 'splashdowns' assisted by parachute were performed for all astronaut missions until the advent of the space shuttle in the 1980s.
Ham – the first chimp in space – observes his equipment prior to his launch in 1961. Ham was trained to conduct simple tasks whilst on his brief mission, thus proving the ability of humans to function in space. The use of animals in the space race attracted controversy at the time, though principally around the animals intended not to return – most famously the USSR's dog, Laika, in 1958. While there were many casualties in America's space program too, most were accidental and typically occurred during re-entry or upon landing. Ham (and later Enos, who orbited) would return to Earth evidently – at least physically – unscathed.
A Mercury capsule model in the Langley Research Centre Spin Tunnel, 1959. Various aerodynamic tests were commissioned to assess the capsule's behaviour whilst descending towards its landing; the spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere at thousands of kilometres an hour, and relied on the drag created by its blunt-end heat shield to slow it down enough for the parachutes to deploy during its 62-mile free-fall. Re-entry was always a huge concern: the slightest inequity between the heat shield, velocity, pitch and speed could result in the spacecraft failing to re-enter the atmosphere – or incinerating within it.
Christopher Kraft, flight director during Project Mercury, works at his console inside the Flight Control area at Mercury Mission Control.
Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard works at his console as capsule communicator – capcom – inside the Flight Control Area. Capcom positions were often filled by astronauts rather than ground staff due to their empathy with the situations those on board may experience, as well as their knowledge of the craft.
The Mercury 13 were a parallel group of female aspirant astronauts who were subjected to the same physical screenings as the male Mercury 7. According to NASA, ‘all the women who participated in the program, known as First Lady Astronaut Trainees, were skilled pilots. Dr. Randy Lovelace, a NASA scientist who had conducted the official Mercury program physicals, administered the tests at his private clinic without official NASA sanction. Cobb passed all the training exercises, ranking in the top 2% of all astronaut candidates of both genders.’ She would later lobby fiercely for equality in the astronaut field, which prohibited female participation on the grounds that all astronauts had to be military test pilots. Later a pioneering aviator and humanitarian, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1981. She died in 2019.
John Glenn poses in his Mercury suit. The mirrors were to allow the astronaut to view instruments and the surroundings in the confines of the capsule – and the restricted movement of the pressure suit.
Wally Schirra poses with his suit, portable oxygen kit and a model of the Mercury capsule. Schirra's was the penultimate Mercury mission, in October 1962. By the time of his flight, astronauts were arguably in the greatest risk of all; Schirra was tasked to test the ability of a pilot to operate and navigate the spacecraft manually. He made six orbits of the Earth and was in space for nine hours.
Officials in the Mercury Control Centre make the decision to go for 22 orbits during the final Mercury mission, with Gordon Cooper aboard. The astronaut would spend 34 hours in orbit, in a mission designed to evaluate the effects of a full day in space.
John F. Kennedy visits the Cape Canaveral spaceport, November 13, 1963. In this image he speaks with Mercury astronauts Gordon Cooper and Gus Grissom, and G. Merritt Preston, chief of the Manned Spacecraft Centre. All the mercury missions had, by this point, been completed successfully; A week later Kennedy was shot dead in Dallas.
The Mercury 7 (front row) pose with the next generation of astronauts, the so-called 'Next 9.' The two groups would combine to form the basis of the Apollo program; pictured are Neil Armstrong (back, third from right) and Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell (back, far right.)
John Glenn became the oldest person to fly in space on the shuttle Discovery in 1998. However symbolic the undertones, the aim of the mission was to assess the effects of spaceflight on older people.
John Glenn is presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama, 2012. The son of a plumber and a schoolteacher, Glenn was a senator in later life; he died in 2016 at the age of 95.
