Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, and Wally Schirra Signed Project Mercury Decal.

CARPENTER, Scott; Gordon Cooper; Wally Schirra.

$1,250.00

Item Number: 147226

Unused decal honoring Project Mercury; signed by three of the Mercury Seven. Four-cent Project Mercury stamp decal, depicting an illustration of the Freedom 7 capsule in space, surrounded by the surnames of the Mercury Seven astronauts. Boldly signed along the outer border by Scott Carpenter and Gordon Cooper and by Wally Schirra. In very good condition.

"The first seven American astronauts were an admirable group of individuals chosen to sit at the apex of a pyramid of human effort… They chose to lead by following the opportunity that chance, circumstance, technology and history had prepared for them" (Swenson, Grimwood & Alexander). NASA introduced the seven astronauts in Washington on April 9, 1959. Although the agency viewed Project Mercury's purpose as an experiment to determine whether humans could survive space travel, the seven men immediately became national heroes and were compared by TIME magazine to "Columbus, Magellan, Daniel Boone, and the Wright brothers" (TIME 1959).