MANNED SPACECRAFT CENTER, HOUSTON, TX. -- FIRST ASTRONAUT TEAM -- Project Mercury Astronauts, whose selection was announced on April 9, 1959, only six months after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was formally established on Oct. 1, 1958, included: front row, left to right, Walter H. Schirra Jr., Donald K. Slayton, John H. Glenn Jr., and Scott Carpenter back row, Alan B. Shepard Jr., Virgil I. 'Gus' Grissom, and L. Gordon Cooper.
Album Kennedy_History