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 |  First Astronaut 
        Team
 
 Project Mercury Astronauts, whose selection was announced 
        on April 9, 1959, only six months after the National Aeronautics and Space 
        Administration was formally established on October 1, 1958: (front row, 
        left to right) Walter M. Schirra, Jr.; Donald K. Deke Slayton; 
        John H. Glenn, Jr.; and Scott Carpenter; (back row, left to right) Alan 
        B. Shepard, Jr.; Virgil I. Gus Grissom; and L. Gordon Cooper. |