NASA Project Mercury: 1960's Manned Spaceflight / Space Documentary S88TV1
4:07
Project Mercury: The First Americans in Space
19:04
NASA's Mercury Control Center at the Cape
27:42
Astronaut Training | Project Mercury: America's First Manned Space Program | NASA Documentary Film
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. Taken over from the US Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency NASA, it conducted twenty unmanned developmental flights, and six successful flights by astronauts. The program, which took its name from Roman mythology, cost $1.8 billion adjusted for inflation. The astronauts were collectively known as the "Mercury Seven", and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a "7" by its pilot.