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 human into Earth
orbit and return the person safely, ideally before the
Soviet Union. Taken over from the
U.S. Air Force by the newly created civilian space agency
NASA, it spanned twenty unmanned developmental missions involving test animals, and successful missions completed by six of
the seven selected Mercury astronauts.
The Space Race had begun with the 1957 launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1. This came as a shock to the American public, and led to the creation of NASA to expedite existing U.S. space exploration efforts, and place most of them under civilian control. After the successful launch of the Explorer 1 satellite in 1958, manned spaceflight became the next goal.
The program took its name from the wing-footed, fleet god of travel in Roman mythology, and is estimated to have cost $2.24 billion (current prices) and to have involved the work of 2 million people. The astronauts were collectively known as the "Mercury Seven", and each spacecraft was given a name ending with a "7" by its pilot.
After a slow start riddled with humiliating mistakes, the Mercury Project gained popularity, its missions followed by millions on radio and TV around the world. Its success laid the groundwork for Project Gemini, which carried two astronauts in each capsule and perfected space docking maneuvers essential for lunar travel, and the subsequent Apollo Moon-landing program announced a few weeks after the first manned Mercury flight. However, they were unable to beat the Soviet space program to the goal of the first man in space, and emerged from the program still behind the Soviet Union.
Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov (30 May 1934 – 11 October 2019) was a Soviet and Russian
cosmonaut,
Air Force major general, writer, and artist.
On March 18, 1965, he became the first human to conduct extravehicular activity (EVA), exiting the capsule during the Voskhod 2 mission for a 12-minute spacewalk. During the spacewalk, he encountered severe difficulties due to the design of his spacesuit.
Leonov had been tapped to be a commander for the Soviet crewed lunar programs, and would've commanded the first crewed Soyuz 7K-L1 Zond mission if it were ever cleared to proceed. He was selected as commander of Soyuz 11, the second planned (and first successful) mission to the Salyut 1 space station, but the entire crew was swapped out when crewmate Valeri Kubasov was suspected of contracting tuberculosis. This saved him from dying when Soyuz 11 de-pressurized during re-entry, killing the cosmonauts on-board.
Leonov was then selected as commander of Soyuz 19, the Soviet side of the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, again with Kubasov. They would be joined by Apollo astronauts Tom Stafford, Vance Brand, and Deke Slayton, on the mission in July 1975.
Leonov would serve as "Chief Cosmonaut" from 1976 through 1982, and retired from the Soviet space program in 1991. He would spend time in the private sector in post-Soviet Russia, most notably at Alfa-Bank, until he retired for good in 2001. He has written several books about his space experience, including a joint biography with American astronaut David Scott in 2006.