�y��vlog

There would be three more missions in the one-manned Mercury program, culminating in Gordon Cooper's Faith 7 mission, which completed 22 Earth orbits.

New Shepard is named for Alan Shepard, the first American in space, who flew on a suborbital trajectory during the Mercury program in 1961.

By contrast, when the astronaut John Glenn was selected for the Mercury program, he also did not have an engineering degree.

New Shepard, which cannot be piloted from inside the spacecraft, is named for Alan Shepard, who in 1961 became the first American in space during a suborbital flight as part of NASA’s pioneering Mercury program.

In Ithaca, New York, Hugh had turned to the Mercury program late, too.