The 1950's National Aeronautics And Space Administration (NASA)

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The 1950s decade is debatably the most important era for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA). The 1950s was crucial for NASA because not only was the agency formed in this decade but so was its first space flight programs and all the techincalities that went along with that. In the early 1950s, the challenge to launch an artificial satellite great. Once the Soviet Union sent Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite, into orbit on October 4, 1957, the attention of the United States turned toward its own nascent space efforts. Worried by the Sputnik crisis, the United States Congress called for swift action; President Dwight Eisenhower counseled more deliberate measures. This led to an agreement that a new federal…show more content…
The first man in space couldn't be just any American and there were many requirements that those chosen to the first must have. Despite NASA's insistence for the position of its first astronauts to be an open competition, President Eisenhower's planned on the first Americans to venture into space being selected from a group of military test pilots. It was further stipulated that candidates should be between 25 and 40 years old and due to the small space inside the Mercury capsule, the candidates could no taller than 5 ft 11 in or weigh more than 180 lbs. Other requirements including holding a college degree in science or engineering, having an accumulation of 1,500 hours of flying time, and being qualified to fly…show more content…
Those chosen all had similar backgrounds and technical education, same type of skills and only small variations in appearance. The Mercury Seven consitsted of: Donald Slayton, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Walter Schirra, and Gordon Cooper who overnight became national heroes, being compared to the Wright brothers, Magellan, and even Columbus. All the men, as Eisenhower insisted, were pilots, three were in the Air Force(Cooper, Grissom, and Slayton), three in the Navy(Carpenter, Schirra, and Shepard) and one in the Marine Corps(Glenn). Each one of course fit all of the initial requirements and even had an extra edge as all being devote family men hailing from small towns. With all the astronauts in place, Project Mercury was fully ready to begin its
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