<u>To send Americans into space.</u>
The Project Mercury's aim was to send Americans astronauts into space. It was created in 1958, and a few months later, it selected the seven astronauts for the program, although one of them never made it to space because of a health problem: Deke Slayton.
The first astronaut to ever reach space was the American Allan Shepard, who made a suborbital flight, that is to say, he reached space and came right back down. Subsequently, astronaut Gus Grissom also went to space, and he was followed by John Glenn (who was the first who orbited Earth), Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, and Gordon Cooper (who spent 34 hours circling Earth).
