- Year
- 1962–1963
- By
- NASA
- Section
- NASA — General & Institutional
- Shelf
- Box 4
- Catalog
- Catalog F · NASA Missions
Seven NASA Headquarters news releases (April 1962 – June 1963) tracing the astronaut corps’ buildup and the rules governing its members. Release 62-99 (April 18, 1962) announces the search for five to ten additional pilots to support Mercury and fly the new Gemini and Apollo spacecraft.
A paired set from September 16, 1962 (62-199 and 62-198) lays out NASA’s new astronaut media policy: personal narratives could now be sold, but any story containing undisclosed official information was barred, and a second post-flight press conference open to all outlets was made mandatory.
The next day, NASA named the second astronaut group, the “New Nine” (Armstrong, Borman, Conrad, Lovell, McDivitt, See, Stafford, White, and Young), in release 62-200-A — immediately followed by 62-200-B, a curiously clinical release comparing the new pilots’ average age, weight, height, and flying hours to the original Mercury Seven.
An undated Hangar “S” fact sheet on the astronauts’ Cape Canaveral crew quarters names Air Force Lt. Dolores “Dee” O’Hara, the astronauts’ nurse — one of the few women named in NASA’s early press material. The lot closes with release 63-122 (June 5, 1963), announcing the recruiting round that would become the third astronaut group, “The Fourteen.”
