Introduction1

INTRODUCTION

Project Mercury,

the United States' first manned space flight project was successfully accomplished in a 4 2/3 year period (1959 -1963) of dynamic activity which saw more than 2,000,000 people from many major government agencies and much of the aerospace industry combine their skills, initiative, and experience into a national effort. In the period 1961 - 1963, six manned space flights were accomplished as part of a 25-flight program. These manned space flights were accomplished with complete pilot safety and without change to the basic Mercury concepts. It was shown that man can function ably as a pilot-engineer-experimenter without undesirable reactions of normal body functions for periods up to 34 hours of weightless flight.

Additional information: Soviet Vostok and the U.S. Project Mercury