Project Mercury, as it was called, began in 1958. It was America's first manned space program. The overall goals of the program were to see if a human could really survive being launched into space, orbit the Earth and return home safely.
Big Joe	Little Joe 6	Little Joe 1a	Little Joe 2
Little Joe 1b	Beach Abort	Mercury-Atlas 1	Mercury-Scout 1
Little Joe 5	Mercury 1	Mercury 1a	Mercury 2
Mercury-Redstone Booster	Mercury-Atlas 3	Little Joe 5b	Mercury-Redstone 3
Mercury-Redstone 4	Little Joe 1	Mercury 5	Mercury-Atlas 6
Mercury-Atlas 7	Mercury-Atlas 8	Mercury-Atlas 9