Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Union. Taken over from the US Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency NASA, it conducted 20 uncrewed developmental flights, and six successful flights by astronauts. The program, which took its name from Roman mythology, cost $2.68 billion. The astronauts were collectively known as the "Mercury Seven", and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a "7" by its pilot.
Wallops Island test facility, 1961
Mercury Control Center, Cape Canaveral, 1963
Retropack: Retrorockets with red posigrade rockets
Landing skirt (or bag) deployment: skirt is inflated; on impact the air is pressed out (like an airbag)
Human spaceflight is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be remotely operated from ground stations on Earth, or autonomously, without any direct human involvement. People trained for spaceflight are called astronauts, cosmonauts (Russian), or taikonauts (Chinese); and non-professionals are referred to as spaceflight participants or spacefarers.
Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, 1969
Gemini 4 astronaut Ed White in open space, 1965
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide taking a space selfie in 2012
International Space Station crewmember Tracy Caldwell Dyson views the Earth, 2010