Overview
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
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
Features
-
An Overview of Project Mercury
Government and industry studies indicated the feasibility of human space flight.
-
Mercury 7
Where our human space program began.
-
Project Mercury →
Celebrating the 40th anniversary of America's first human space flight project.
-
Remembering 'Gordo'
The world knew L. Gordon Cooper as a space pioneer who set endurance records in both his Mercury Faith 7 flight and his Gemini 5 mission.
Related Multimedia
Ambassador of Exploration Award
NASA Introduces the Mercury 7
The Mercury Gallery
Great Images in NASA
World Book at NASA
-
Space Exploration
Our human response to curiosity about Earth, the moon, the planets, the sun and other stars, and the galaxies.