The Mercury Project

Abstract

Originally the project was referred to as the Manned Satellite Program. Abe Silverstein, Director of Space Flight Programs at NASA Headquarters, suggested the name Project Mercury, “because in Roman mythology, Mercury is the winged messenger of the gods.” Robert Gilruth, then Project Manager wanted it called Project Astronaut, but the NASA hierarchy preferred Mercury because they wanted the emphasis placed on the machine rather than the man. The Olympian messenger Mercury was the most familiar of the Greek gods to the American people, rich in symbolic associations with advertising, automobiles, and metallurgy, so Project Mercury was adopted on 26 November 1958. Thomas Keith Glennan, the first NASA Administrator, revealed it to the world in a speech on 17 December 1958.

We who inhabit the Earth dwell like frogs at the bottom of a pool. Only if man could rise above the summit of the air could he behold the true Earth, the world in which we live.

Socrates, c. 410 BC