What name was given to NASA’s first group of seven astronauts selected in 1959?

NASA’s first group of seven astronauts, selected in 1959, was called the Mercury Seven.

NASA announced the astronauts on 9 April 1959 for Project Mercury, the United States’ first human spaceflight program. The group included Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Walter Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Deke Slayton.

They were selected from military test pilots and helped establish the training, procedures, and public identity of the early American space program. Six eventually flew Mercury missions; Slayton was grounded by a heart condition and later flew during Apollo-Soyuz in 1975.

The Mercury Seven were not all the astronauts who flew in the wider Space Race. NASA selected a second astronaut group, the New Nine, in 1962, and later groups supplied Gemini and Apollo crews. The group’s story was popularized by the book and film The Right Stuff.