From a nation of 175 million, they stepped forward last week: seven men cut of the same stone as Columbus, Magellan, Daniel Boone, Orville and Wilbur Wright. But there was a difference. Rarely were history's explorers and discoverers so clearly marked in advance as men of destiny. Within approximately two years, one of the seven would be chosen —perhaps by lot—to test for the first time whether a human can be shot beyond the atmosphere to orbit the earth from 125 miles up at 18,000 m.p.h. and return to tell about it.
If he survives the other six will follow his trail, and if he fails the other six will be there to carry on. And beyond, with success, lie higher and headier space flights, perhaps even to the moon.
Three Uniforms. For spacemen, the seven were remarkably down to earth. Despite the TV lights and the press-agentry at a packed Washington press conference, they showed such a basic earnestness and airman's conditioned self-possession, that 200 hard-to-impress capital reporters lustily applauded them. All were veteran test pilots, skilled in wringing out all manner of aircraft for the design engineers. Three were naval officers (two Annapolis graduates), three from the Air Force (no West Pointers), and one was—as he put it—"a lonely marine." Obviously the selectors of the seven had remembered the separate services, and in the flood of applicants for the first trip into space, it was no problem to get good men of three uniforms.
The seven had in common medium height (5 ft. 11 in. or less, to squeeze into the space capsule) and medium age (32 to 37—old enough to have the required experience in the air and engineering, young and fit enough to explore the unknown). Six sported crew cuts, four were their fathers' namesakes. Each was small-town-born, married, a father (one to four children), an active sportsman, a Protestant; each expressed an intimate love for the skies and an abiding faith in the heavens. Yet they were individualists all (see box).
Torture & Triumph. The seven Astronauts of Project Mercury were winnowed out by the most searching tests man could devise and machine could execute. Last winter, just after new Space Administrator T. Keith Glennan ordered the space shoot, the Air Force, Navy and Marines selected the nation's no likeliest military test pilots (requirement: at least 1,500 flight hours). Clattering IBM punch-card selectors pared the list to 69 men of optimum size, health, intelligence. Offered a chance to volunteer, 56 did.