Mercury: Americans in Orbit Interactive Feature NASA commemorates the 45th anniversary of Americans in orbit with a special multimedia salute to the original Mercury astronauts and new interviews with Sen. John Glenn, Scott Carpenter and Walter Schirra.
On Feb. 20, 1962, an Atlas rocket successfully carried Glenn and the hopes of an entire nation into orbit aboard Friendship 7, a flight that ushered in a new era of space travel that eventually led to Americans walking on the moon by the end of the 1960s. Glenn was soon followed into orbit by colleagues Carpenter, Schirra and Gordon Cooper. Their fellow Mercury astronauts Alan Shepard and Virgil "Gus" Grissom flew earlier suborbital flights. Deke Slayton was grounded by a medical condition until the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975.
NASA remembers the achievements of its first generation of explorers with this extraordinary interactive feature. Hosted by NASA astronaut Carl Walz, the feature offers a 360-degree tour of Glenn's tiny Friendship 7 capsule, using images from a rare photo shoot inside the spacecraft. Users can conduct a virtual interview with Glenn, Carpenter and Schirra, explore bios and a photo gallery, or download Mercury wallpaper for their desktops.
+ Launch 'Americans in Orbit' Now + Read More About Project Mercury
+ Mercury: The Manned Flights + History of Human Space Flight