prompting Shepard to quip to Glenn: "Well, I'm glad they got that one out of the way. I sure hope they fix that." Shepard became the first of the seven to be launched. His Mercury capsule was sent ...

Gilruth, 48, director of Project Mercury and head of NASA’s ... Yardley worked closely with John Glenn to perfect the capsule, incorporating many of Glenn’s suggestions. The two became firm ...

Just after John Glenn’s Friendship ... farsightedly started designing space capsules long before Washington asked for them, his company won the coveted Mercury contract, a $130 million program.