Exploring the Unknown: Selected Documents in ... - The Black Vault

Exploring the Unknown 175
Enclosure:
Astronaut instruction sheet
[Signed]
Able Silverstein
Director of Space Flight Programs
Cc: AD/Dryden
AA/Seamans
STG (Gilruth)
[3]
ASTRONAUT INSTRUCTION SHEET
You are asked to submit a list of three Astronauts, excluding yourself, who
in your judgment are best qualified for the first two manned Redstone flights. We
assume you would rate yourself in the group, therefore please omit your name
from the list.
#1. .
#2. .
#3. .
Comments, if any:
Signed _________________.
Document I-33
Document Title: Jerome B. Wiesner, The White House, Memorandum for
Dr. [McGeorge] Bundy, “Some Aspects of Project Mercury,” 9 March 1961.
Source: Folder 18674, NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History
Division, NASA Headquarters, Washington DC.
When President Eisenhower chose to use military test pilots as astronauts in 1958 to1959,
it set in motion several discussions in various sectors about the signal it would send to the
world of the U.S.’s peaceful intentions in space. The inauguration of John F. Kennedy as
president in January 1961 brought to the nation’s highest political office a different political
party and a different philosophy on such matters. This memorandum sent by Presidential