On 20 February 1962, NASA astronaut John Glenn turned the primary American to orbit Earth. The mission was a part of NASA’s Mercury human spaceflight programme and got here simply 9 months after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin turned the primary particular person in area.
One other vital second got here when Glenn used a digicam he had bought from a store close to the Cape Canaveral, Florida, launch website to snap the first-ever {photograph} taken by a human in area. Later pictures taken by astronauts confirmed Earth in unprecedented new methods, and NASA shortly realised the scientific and public worth of such area pictures.
The Mercury programme, together with the Gemini undertaking, had been precursors to the Apollo missions that finally landed people on the moon. A new book celebrates this vital phase of historical past by pictures and movie stills masterfully restored by Andy Saunders from NASA’s authentic pictures.
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