Project Mercury - United States First Men-in-Space Program: 1958-1963
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States. Though for awhile over-shadowed by the Soviet space program which beat America into space, first with Sputnik and then with the first man in space, Yuri Gargarin, it proved its worth by the end of its run in 1963.The program's astronauts, the Mercury Seven, established the image of the American astronaut for decades to come in the United States. They were almost legendary in the minds of the public, their success in space..