--- title: Mercury Seven: Photos of Early NASA Astronauts in Training description: The early days of Project Mercury, when Shepard, Glenn, Slayton, Grissom, Schirra, Cooper and Carpenter were legends in the making. canonical: https://time.com/3879356/mercury-seven-photos-of-nasa-astronauts-in-training/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-15T23:46:07.000Z article:modified_time: 2024-01-24T14:13:53.000Z og:title: Mercury Seven: Photos of Early NASA Astronauts in Training og:description: The early days of Project Mercury, when Shepard, Glenn, Slayton, Grissom, Schirra, Cooper and Carpenter were legends in the making. og:url: https://time.com/3879356/mercury-seven-photos-of-nasa-astronauts-in-training/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltff54ab3c4a766152/698846da428a9e9397ccc42a/559481_wp1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: Mercury 7 astronauts og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Mercury Seven: Photos of Early NASA Astronauts in Training twitter:description: The early days of Project Mercury, when Shepard, Glenn, Slayton, Grissom, Schirra, Cooper and Carpenter were legends in the making. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltff54ab3c4a766152/698846da428a9e9397ccc42a/559481_wp1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Magnificent Seven: LIFE With America's Mercury Astronauts > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Updated: Jan 24, 2024 2:13 PM UTCPublished: Mar 15, 2014 11:46 PM UTC  Project Mercury astronauts at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia: (top, left to right) Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper; (bottom left to right) Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter. Project Mercury astronauts at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia: (top, left to right) Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper; (bottom left to right) Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter.Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Updated: Jan 24, 2024 2:13 PM UTCPublished: Mar 15, 2014 11:46 PM UTC Shepard, Glenn, Slayton, Grissom, Schirra, Cooper, Carpenter. Swap them around, place them in any order you like — they’ll still be recognizable as the names of the dauntless men NASA chose as America’s first astronauts: the [Mercury Seven](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury%5FSeven). No other publication covered the early days of the Space Race with as much unfettered access to the astronauts and their families as LIFE, and in its Sept. 14, 1959, issue the editors featured the “fly boys” selected for Project Mercury in a major cover story that, in effect, introduced the septet to the American public in a uniquely up-close and personal way. In endearingly un-hip language, the magazine’s editors celebrated the fact that, when it came to the Space Race, LIFE was “with it in a far-out era. . . . We begin this week to report the personal side of a story which we know will live on in history as long as there are men to record it. It is the story of the Astronauts — the supremely dramatic story of man’s first efforts to leave his native Earth.” In the introduction to the multi-part feature itself, meanwhile, the momentous nature of the task ahead was discussed in tones that ranged from the near-poetic to the downright blunt: --- > “” --- Here, on the 55th anniversary of the day — April 9, 1959 — that the seven were introduced to America, LIFE.com offers a gallery of photos taken in the early days of Project Mercury. The pictures were made by long-time LIFE photographer Ralph Morse — a man who spent so much time with the Mercury Seven (and, ultimately, with the Gemini and Apollo crews, as well) that John Glenn himself fondly dubbed him “the eighth astronaut.”  Project Mercury astronauts at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia: (top, left to right) Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper; (bottom left to right) Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Project Mercury astronaut John Glenn trains in a mock-up of the planned NASA space capsule, 1959. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper, 1959\. Cooper, who retired from both NASA and the Air Force (as a colonel) in 1970, was the last Mercury astronaut launched into space, and spent more time aloft during his May 1963 mission (34-plus hours) than all five previous flights combined. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Astronaut Donald "Deke" Slayton in an "orbital attitude simulator" training device, 1959\. In 1975, at 51 years old, Maj. Slayton became the oldest person to fly into space (until his Mercury colleague John Glenn flew aboard the Discovery space shuttle at age 77 in 1998) when he served as the docking module pilot of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Astronaut Virgil "Gus" Grissom, the second American to fly into space, shown strapped in a centrifuge during a simulated space flight, 1959\. Lieutenant Col. Grissom was killed, along with fellow astronauts Roger Chaffee and Ed White, in a launch pad fire while training for the Apollo 1 mission in January 1967. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Air Force medical officer Dr. William Douglas (right) gives a physiology lesson to Project Mercury astronaut Wally Schirra, 1959\. Schirra is the only person to fly in all three of the earliest space programs — Mercury, Gemini and Apollo — and eventually logged more than 295 hours in space. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter flies in an F-100F supersonic jet fighter while training in weightlessness. (The floating golf ball is an indication of the state of weightlessness in the cockpit at the time the picture was made.) Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Astronaut Alan Shepard — who, in May 1961, became the first American in space — checks the fit of his individually molded capsule "couch" during Project Mercury training, 1959. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Project Mercury astronauts pose in new pressure suits at Virginia's Langley Air Force Base, 1960. 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