Born April 3, 1926
Mitchell, Indiana

Died January 27, 1967
Kennedy Space Center,
Cape Canaveral, Florida

American astronaut

Gus Grissom. © Bettmann/Corbis. Reproduced by permission.

Frustrated that the Soviet Union had launched the first manmade object into orbit in 1957, the United States stepped up its efforts to be the first to put a human into space. To win the space race, the U.S. Congress created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958. Among the first to respond to his country's call to pioneer space travel was Virgil "Gus" Grissom. From among five hundred military pilots who met the standards NASA set for its first astronauts, Grissom passed weeks of testing to be named one of America's first astronauts for the Mercury 7 project launch on April 9, 1959. Grissom's work over the next eight years helped create a strong foundation for the future of the...