The results of the two short flights made space officials believe the Mercury program was ready for its first orbital flight.

VOA: special.2009.06.17

Astronauts in NASA's Mercury Program flew the first American space flights in the early nineteen-sixties.

VOA: special.2011.04.06

I'm Shirley Griffith. Listen again next week to the second part of the story of the Mercury program that took the first American astronauts into space.

VOA: special.2009.06.10