Press Conference Introducing 7 Mercury Astronauts 1959 Part 3/3

Less than a year after NASA's birth, the agency introduced its first astronaut class, the Mercury Seven, on April 9, 1959. The press conference held in Washington that day introduced the world to a group of men who would become household names and genuine American heroes. Six of the Original Seven flew Mercury mission; Deke Slayton was grounded by a medical problem but later flew on the Apollo-Soyuz flight.

The Mercury flights proved that humans could live and work in space, and paved the way for the Gemini and Apollo programs as well as for all further human spaceflight.

For the transcript of the conference, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/50th_announcement/mercury_press_conference.pdf

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXj5lc_QUOM
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2w8cWFE1Lk

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Mercury
• Mercury 7
• NASA
• 50th Anniversary
• Spaceflight

[pjstran]

These are the kinds of videos that should be viewed about a million times on youtube.com...not the latest Kesha music video. Thanks for posting this!

[ouaquede]

Great footage! In good quality!

Thanks fo sharing.

[jackwolf131]

Astronauts sure make me laugh too when they joke around with what they did and how the program went, You guys always brighten my days, Thanks a lot :)

[ngio24]

Buster

[ngio24]

Buster

[justkess4]

Buster

[wweddle73]

thanks for posting..... great video thanks!

[stokepogue]

This is great but I've yet to see the whole thing in it's entirety, seems hard to find.

[at1212b]

this is crazy seeing how serious they take IQ numbers

[83mikedyer]

great video