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The Mercury Seven were the group of seven astronauts selected to fly spacecraft for Project Mercury. They are also referred to as the Original Seven and Astronaut Group 1. Their names were publicly announced by NASA on April 9, 1959: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton.
On Feb. 20, 1962, Glenn blasted into space aboard Mercury's Friendship 7 capsule, then traveled around the planet three times, becoming the first American to orbit the Earth.
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union.
On April 9, 1959, NASA formally introduced to the nation and the world its seven Mercury astronauts. The event took place in the ballroom of the Dolley Madison House on Lafayette Square in Washington, DC, which then served as the first headquarters of the new space agency.
Project Mercury was the NASA program that put the first American astronauts in space. Astronauts made a total of six spaceflights during Project Mercury. Two of those flights reached space and came right back down.
On April 9, 1959, reporters and news media crammed into the ballroom of the Dolley Madison House in Washington—the location of NASA Headquarters at that time—to learn the names of the first American astronauts who came to be known as the Mercury 7.
In February 1962—just nine months after President John F. Kennedy called for the U.S. to put a man on the moon before 1970—Mercury astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.