Brave Astronaut notes today's "This Day in History" from the work website:
On this day in 1959, NASA announced the selection of America's first seven astronauts: Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Donald Slayton.
Immortalized later in the 1983 film, "The Right Stuff," from the book by Tom Wolfe, these seven men helped to birth the American Space Program.
Of the seven, only three survive. Carpenter is retired and lives mostly in Colorado. John Glenn, of course, had an distinguished career as Senator from Ohio, and returned to space in 1998, becoming the oldest man to go into space. Wally Schirra holds the distinction of being the only one of the original seven to fly in all of the first three space programs, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.
Gordon Cooper died in 2004 at the age of 77. Grissom perished in the launchpad fire in 1967, which also killed Ed White and Roger Chafee. Alan Shepard died in 1978. Slayton died in 1993.
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