Apr 9 1959

From The Space Library

At a press conference in Washington, D.C., NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan announced that seven pilots had been selected for the Mercury program. They were Lt. Cdr. Alan B. Shepard, Jr., Navy; Capt. Virgil I. Grissom, Air Force; Lt. Col. John H. Glenn, Jr., Marines; Lt. Malcolm Scott Carpenter, Navy; Lt. Cdr. Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Navy; Capt. Donald K. Slayton, Air Force; and Capt. Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr., Air Force.

U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Science and Astronautics, Meeting with the Astronauts, Project Mercury, Man-in-Space Program, Hearings, 86th Congress, 1st Session (1959).

Members of the new Research Steering Committee on Manned Space Flight were nominated by the Ames, Lewis, and Langley Research Centers, the High Speed Flight Station (HSFS) (later Flight Research Center), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Office of Space Flight Development OSFD), and the Office of Aeronautical and Space Research (OASR). They were: Alfred J. Eggers, Jr. (Ames); Bruce T. Lundin (Lewis); Laurence K. Loftin, Jr. (Langley); De E. Beeler (HSFS); Harris M. Schurmeier (JPL); Maxime A. Faget (STG) ; George M. Low of NASA Headquarters OSFD) ; and Milton B. Ames, Jr. (part-time) (OASR).

Memoranda, Ames, Lewis, and Langley Research Centers to NASA Headquarters, "Research Steering Committee on Manned Space Flight," April 9 and 17, 1959; High Speed Flight Station to NASA Headquarters, "Research Steering Committee on Manned Space Flight," April 28, 1959; letter, W. H. Pickering, Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to Dr. J. W. Crowley, Director of Aeronautical and Space Research, NASA, April 13, 1959; memorandum, Abe Silverstein, Director of Space Flight Development, to Director of Aeronautical and Space Research, "Research Steering Committee on Manned Space Flight," April 13, 1959.