Project Mercury was the United States’ first man-in-space program. It started in 1958 and was finished in 1963. The goals of the program were:

	To orbit a manned spacecraft around the Earth
	To study how man functions in space
	To recover both astronaut and spacecraft safely

The first U.S. spaceship was shaped like a cone and could carry one man.  A cylinder was mounted on top of the capsule.  The Mercury program used two launch vehicles.  One was a Redstone rocket for the suborbital flights and the other was an Atlas rocket for the 4 orbital flights.  Before the manned flights, unmanned tests of the booster and the capsule were made using a monkey as passsenger.

In 1959 NASA selected 7 men as the first American astronauts. They were:

	Alan B. Shepard, Jr
	Virgin I "Gus" Grissom
	John H. Glenn, Jr.
	M. Scott Carpenter
	Walter M. Schirra, Jr.
	L. Gordon "Gordo" Cooper
	Donald K. "Deke" Slayton

Slayton didn’t fly at this time because of heart problems.   In 1975, he flew  on the Apollo-Soyuz test flight.

Each astronaut named his own capsule and added the number 7 to represent the original astronauts. The manned flights were:

	Mercury-Redstone 3 Freedom 7 Date May 5, 1961 - Crew:  Alan B. Shepard    Time:  15 min.   22 sec. Suborbital flight that put the first American in space
	Mercury-Redstone 4 Liberty Bell 7 Date:  July 21, 1961 - Crew:  Gus Grissom   Time:  15 min.   37 sec. Suborbital flight but the spacecraft sank right after splashdown after the hatch blew open.  It was retrieved in July, 1999.
	Mercury-Atlas 6 Friendship 7 Date:  February 20, 1962  - Crew:  John Glenn  Time:  4 hrs.   55 min. Three orbit flight that put the first American into orbit.
	Mercury-Atlas 7 Aurora 7 Date:  May 24, 1962 - Crew:  M. Scott Carpenter  Time:  4 hrs.  56 min. Duplicated Atlas 6 flight - overshot landing site by 250 miles.
	Mercury-Atlas 8 Sigma 7 Date:  October 3, 1962 - Crew:  Walter Schirra, Jr.  Time:  9 hrs.  13 min. Six orbit test flight.  Splashdown within 5 miles of landing site.
	Mercury-Atlas 9 Faith 7 Date:  May 15-16, 1963 - Crew:  L. Gordon Cooper  Time:  34 hrs.  19 min Last Mercury mission.  Completed 22 orbits to study the effects of 1 day in space.   First live television broadcast from a U.S. spacecraft.

The Mercury missions were important milestones in America's space efforts.

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