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| The "Original Seven" |
NASA's first group of Mercury astronauts (the "Original Seven") pictured here at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), now Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas (June 1963) included Naval aviators, Air Force pilots and a Marine Corps aviator.
Conceivably any one of them could have been first man on the moon some five years later, but each were integral parts of the team that spectacularly achieved that effort. They’re all gone now* but what a fantastic legacy they left in their wake.
* (left to right):
Cooper 2004 (77) [heart failure]
Schirra 2007 (84) [heart attack]
Shepard 1998 (75) [leukemia]
Grissom 1967 (41) [testing accident]
Glenn 2016 (95)
Slayton 1993 (69) [malignant brain tumor]
Carpenter 2013 (88) [stroke]
