Bill Taub caught it: We were all that captivated by Mercury. John Glenn’s crisp white shirt ... before he would climb aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft and ride an Atlas rocket on the same ...

Gilruth, 48, director of Project Mercury and head of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center ... Yardley worked closely with John Glenn to perfect the capsule, incorporating many of Glenn’s suggestions.

Our eyes are on the spacecraft ... first time astronauts rode an Atlas since NASA’s Project Mercury, starting with John Glenn when he became the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962.

Here’s a look at human spaceflight programs in the United States and around the world. Facts The United States ended its crewed space shuttle program with the launch of Atlantis on July 8, 2011, and ...

February 20, 1962 – Project Mercury astronaut John Glenn is the first American to ... Space Shuttle Columbia, the first reusable spacecraft, orbits Earth 37 times before landing.