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[[File:Alan Shepard during Mercury-Redstone 3.jpg|thumb|right|Alan Shepard, the first American in space, 1961]] |
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[[File:Alan Shepard during Mercury-Redstone 3.jpg|thumb|right|Alan Shepard, the first American in space, 1961]] |
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The US Air Force had been developing a program to launch the first man in space, named [[Man in Space Soonest]]. This program studied several different types of one-man space vehicles, settling on a [[space capsule|ballistic re-entry capsule]] launched on a derivative [[Atlas LV-3B|Atlas missile]], and selecting a group of nine candidate pilots. After NASA's creation, the program was transferred over to the civilian agency and renamed [[Project Mercury]] on November 26, 1958. NASA selected a new group of [[astronaut]] (from the Greek for "star sailor") candidates from [[United States Navy|Navy]], [[United States Air Force|Air Force]] and [[United States Marine Corps|Marine]] test pilots, and narrowed this down to [[Mercury Seven|a group of seven]] for the program. Capsule design and astronaut training began immediately, working toward preliminary suborbital flights on the [[Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle|Redstone missile]], followed by orbital flights on the Atlas. Each flight series would first start uncrewed, then carry a non-human primate, then finally humans.{{citation_needed|date=July 2019}} |
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The US Air Force had been developing a program to launch the first man in space, named [[Man in Space Soonest]]. This program studied several different types of one-man space vehicles, settling on a [[space capsule|ballistic re-entry capsule]] launched on a derivative [[Atlas LV-3B|Atlas missile]], and selecting a group of nine candidate pilots. After NASA's creation, the program was transferred over to the civilian agency and renamed [[Project Mercury]] on November 26, 1958. NASA selected a new group of [[astronaut]] (from the Greek for "star sailor") candidates from [[United States Navy|Navy]], [[United States Air Force|Air Force]] and [[United States Marine Corps|Marine]] test pilots, and narrowed this down to [[Mercury Seven|a group of seven]] for the program. Capsule design and astronaut training began immediately, working toward preliminary suborbital flights on the [[Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle|Redstone missile]], followed by orbital flights on the Atlas. Each flight series would first start uncrewed, then carry a non-human primate, then finally humans.{{citation_needed|date=July 2019}} |