April 6, 1997
Somewhere above you, light is arriving from places so distant their names feel like poetry.
Mercury Astronauts and a Redstone Credit:
Birthday · April 6, 1997
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published April 6, 1997. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Space suited project Mercury astronauts John H. Glenn, Virgil I. Grissom, and Alan B. Shepard Jr. (left to right) are pictured here posing in front of a Redstone rocket in this vintage 1961 NASA publicity photo. Project Mercury was the first U.S. program designed to put humans in space. It resulted in 6 flights using one-man capsules and Redstone and Atlas rockets. Shortly after the first U.S. manned flight on May 5, 1961, a suborbital flight piloted by Alan Shepard, President Kennedy announced the goal of a manned lunar landing by 1970. This goal was achieved by NASA's Apollo program and Shepard himself walked on the moon as commander of the Apollo 14 mission.