9781422283301

Introduction

Astronaut Neil Armstrong on the Moon, in a famous photograph taken by Buzz Aldrin.

Project Mercury lasted slightly over four years and includ- ed six manned missions completed. An estimated 2,000,000 workers from both government agencies and private com- panies used their skills, knowledge, and experience for that national effort. Following the successful Mercury missions, the idea of manned spaceflight excited the world’s imagination even further, and on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong became the first person ever to walk on the Moon, an estimated 600 million people—a fifth of the entire population of the Earth at the time—watched the televised event. Among those who dreamed of participating one day in space exploration—if not as astronauts, then as scientists, researchers, technologists, and inventors—were numerous AfricanAmericans. In the years that followed, some of those

Introduction

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