On this day in space: April 2, 1959: NASA celebrates first birthday by selecting the Mercury Seven

On this day in space: April 2, 1959, NASA selected its first astronaut training group for the Mercury mission, marking exactly a year since the space agency was first recommended in a letter to Congress penned by President Eisenhower.

The failed Mercury-Redstone 1 (MR-1) launch on Nov. 21, 1960 (at left) and successful MR-1A lift off on Dec. 19, 1960. (Image credit: NASA)

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The so-called Mercury Seven were Malcolm S. Carpenter (Navy), L. Gordon Cooper (Air Force), John H. Glenn Jr. (Marines), Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom (Air Force), Walter M. Schirra Jr. (Navy), Alan B. Shepard Jr. (Navy) and Donald K. "Deke" Slayton (Air Force).

Intially a wider talent pool was considered but in 1958 Eisenhower narrowed this down to military test pilots only. To qualify candiadtes had to meet criteria including being over 40 years of age and having a minimum of 1,500 flight-hours under their belts.

Eventually all seven of the first Mercury astronaut group made it to space, though for medical reasons Slayton had to wait 16 years for the last Apollo mission.

With the launch of Artemis 2 yesterday and the new era of human spaceflight it ushers in, there has never been a more fitting day to remember the Mercury Seven.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.

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