Photographing Americas First Astronauts

Featuring more than 600 photos, Photographing America's First Astronauts: Project Mercury Through the Lens of Bill Taub is the most complete photographic account of Project Mercury ever published. Previous Project Mercury books largely have relied on the relatively limited number of photos released by NASA. This book, however, showcases hundreds of never-before-seen images of America’s first manned space program by NASA’s first staff photographer, Bill Taub. Taub went everywhere with the Mercury astronauts, capturing their daily activities from 1959 to 1963. As a result, his photos provide a unique and intimate behind-the-scenes look at the people and operations of Project Mercury in real time.

Drawing on Taub’s recently discovered archive of thousands of black-and-white and color prints, slides, and transparencies, this is the first book to comprehensively visually document Project Mercury. No previous book has devoted as many images to each of the Mercury Seven astronauts and their pioneering spaceflights. Other chapters cover astronaut selection and training, NASA management, and facilities at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Each image is accompanied by a detailed caption. The foreword is by legendary NASA Flight Director Eugene Kranz.

Photo historian and author J. L. Pickering has conducted photo research into the US manned space program for nearly fifty years―acquiring, organizing, and restoring more than 250,000 prints, slides, transparencies, and digital files, the largest such private archive. His sources include government archives, NASA retirees, news photographers, private collectors, and auction houses. One of the world’s leading manned space photography experts, he is regularly contacted by authors, retired astronauts, and even NASA for photo assistance.

Journalist John Bisney is a retired national news correspondent who covered the US space program for more than thirty years for CNN Radio, RKO Radio, the Discovery Science Channel, and SiriusXM. He covered more than sixty-five space shuttle launches, including the Challenger and Columbia disasters. With Pickering, he has coauthored five space photography history books.

Eugene Kranz was NASA’s second chief flight director, serving during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, including the first lunar landing mission, Apollo 11. He also directed the successful efforts by Mission Control to save the crew of Apollo 13. Kranz is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and his role as a flight controller during Mercury is illustrated in this book.