20 a
Bill Taub

The Original Seven Project Mercury astronauts, Langley Air Force Base

Project Mercury, January 20, 1961

Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with “A Kodak Paper” watermarks on the verso, numbered “NASA S-61-1250” (NASA MSC) in black in top margin (the print was made in 1962-1963)

20 b
NASA / Unidentified Photographer

President John Kennedy in the Oval Office with his appointee for the head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, James Webb

Project Mercury, January 30, 1961

Vintage gelatin silver print on fiber-based paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with NASA HQ caption numbered “VIP-10” on the verso
20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in)

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Lot Essay

20 a
Bill Taub, NASA’s first senior photographer, took his first job at NACA’s Langley Field in Hampton, VA. at the age of 17. When he succeeded in photographing the spark an engine inside a cylinder using his personal Leica camera, something that NACA’s official photographers had been unable to capture (as they were using the wrong equipment), officials at Langley offered him a new job as a photographer. He then photographed every mission from Mercury to Apollo and was often one of the last people to see the astronauts before liftoff, earning the nickname “Two More Taub” for his insistence on snapping just a couple more shots.

NASA’s head photographer Bill Taub took this famous photograph of the Mercury Seven the day Alan Shepard was selected by Space Task Group Director Robert Gilruth as the first astronaut to ride through space. The Mercury astronauts stand beside a Convair 106-B aircraft at Langley Air Force Base. They are, left to right, Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Walter Schirra, Alan Shepard, and Donald “Deke” Slayton.

“I had the privilege to be there to record it. I made sure I recorded it to the best of my ability, because I have a sense of history. But you’ve got to remember I was an artist, and I was an amateur photographer, more than that, and I loved to take pictures, so I was looking to take pictures that were different, and that’s how that came about, you know, to have a sense of the artistry to them.”
Bill Taub (NASA HQ oral history project)

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On February 14, 1961, James Webb accepted President John Kennedy’s appointment as Administrator of NASA. Webb directed NASA’s undertaking of the goal set by Kennedy of landing an American on the Moon before the end of the 1960s through the Apollo program. Until his retirement in October 1968, Webb lobbied for support for NASA in Congress. As a longtime Washington insider and with the backing of President Lyndon B. Johnson, he was able to produce continued support and resources for Apollo.