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 human into Earth
orbit and return the person safely, ideally before the
Soviet Union. Taken over from the
U.S. Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency
NASA, it spanned twenty unmanned developmental missions involving test animals, and successful missions completed by six of
the seven selected Mercury astronauts.
The Space Race had begun with the 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1. This came as a shock to the American public, and led to the creation of NASA to expedite existing U.S. space exploration efforts, and place most of them under civilian control. After the successful launch of the Explorer 1 satellite in 1958, manned spaceflight became the next goal.
The program took its name from the wing-footed, fleet god of travel in Roman mythology, and is estimated to have cost $2.24 billion (current prices) and to have involved the work of 2 million people. The astronauts were collectively known as the "Mercury Seven", and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a "7" by its pilot.
After a slow start riddled with humiliating mistakes, the Mercury Project gained popularity, its missions followed by millions on radio and TV around the world. Its success laid the groundwork for Project Gemini, which carried two astronauts in each capsule and perfected space docking maneuvers essential for lunar travel, and the subsequent Apollo Moon-landing program announced a few weeks after the first manned Mercury flight. However, they were unable to beat the Soviet space program to the goal of the first man in space, and emerged from the program still behind the Soviet Union.
John Watts Young (September 24, 1930 – January 5, 2018) was an American
astronaut,
naval officer and
aviator,
test pilot, and
aeronautical engineer. He became the
ninth person to walk on the Moon as Commander of the
Apollo 16 mission in 1972. Young enjoyed the longest career of any astronaut, becoming the first person to fly six space missions over the course of 42 years of active
NASA service. He is the only person to have piloted and commanded four different classes of spacecraft:
Gemini, the
Apollo command and service module, the
Apollo Lunar Module, and the
Space Shuttle.
Before becoming an astronaut, Young received his Bachelor of Science degree with highest honors in Aeronautical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and joined the U.S. Navy. After serving at sea during the Korean War he became a naval aviator, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School (Class 23), setting several world time-to-climb records as a test pilot. Young left the Navy in 1976 with the rank of captain.
In 1965 Young flew on the first crewed Gemini mission, and then commanded the 1966 Gemini 10 mission. In 1969 during Apollo 10, he became the first person to fly solo around the Moon. He then walked on the Moon and drove the Lunar Roving Vehicle on the Moon's surface during Apollo 16, and is one of only three people to have flown to the Moon twice.
Young also commanded two flights of Space Shuttle Columbia: STS-1 in 1981, the Space Shuttle program's first launch, and STS-9 in 1983. Young served as Chief of the Astronaut Office from 1974 to 1987, and retired from NASA in 2004.