Name: The Original Seven Project Mercury astronauts, Langley Air Force Base, July 1960
Brand: Ralph Morse
Price: 1200.00 GBP
Availability: SoldOut

Ralph Morse

The Original Seven Project Mercury astronauts, Langley Air Force Base

Project Mercury, July 1960

Vintage gelatin silver print on fiber-based paper, 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10in), with NASA credit stamp and NASA HQ caption on the verso, numbered “NASA B-60-1587” in black in top margin

Reynolds, pp. 38-39; Chaikin, Space, p. 40.

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Specified lots are being stored at Crozier Park Royal (details below) or will be removed from Christie’s, 8 King Street, London, SW1Y 6QT by 5.00pm on the day of the sale. Christie’s will inform you if the lot has been sent offsite. If the lot has been transferred to Crozier Park Royal, it will be available for collection from 12.00pm on the second business day following the sale. Please call Christie’s Client Service 24 hours in advance to book a collection time at Crozier Park Royal. All collections from Crozier Park Royal will be by pre-booked appointment only. Tel: +44 (0)20 7839 9060 Email: cscollectionsuk@christies.com. If the lot remains at Christie’s, 8 King Street, it will be available for collection on any working day (not weekends) from 9.00am to 5.00pm
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Lot Essay

Front row, left to right: Walter Schirra, Donald “Deke” Slayton, John Glenn, and Scott Carpenter; back row, left to right: Alan Shepard, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, and Gordon Cooper.

This very famous photograph of the astronauts wearing their new Mercury spacesuits was made by long-time Life photographer Ralph Morse, a man who spent so much time with the Mercury Seven (and with the Gemini and Apollo crews as well) that John Glenn himself fondly dubbed him “the eighth astronaut” (Ben Cosgrove, TIME magazine, http://time.com/3879356/mercury-seven-photos-of-nasa-astronauts-in-training/).

Although the agency viewed Project Mercury’s purpose as an experiment to determine whether humans could survive space travel, the Original Seven astronauts immediately became national heroes and were compared by TIME magazine to “Columbus, Magellan, Daniel Boone, and the Wright brothers”.