Time and Space Capsule - Astronaut Cards

Another set of peculiar artifacts from our fall attic cleaning.  This is a series of trading cards from 1963 that celebrate the astronauts of the Mercury Program.  It took me a while to figure out why I found them so fascinating.  I decided that they were from such a different time for us culturally.  We once had Heroes who became celebrities based on their accomplishments.  In these lesser times we mostly just have Celebrities trying to pose as heroes without accomplishments.

There were seven astronauts in the initial group.  They were referred to as "The Mercury Seven".  Here are the three most famous ones.

Of course John Glenn became the household name.  Fighter pilot in WWII and Korea (where he shot down 3 Migs), he made the first US orbital flight.

Virgil (Gus) Grissom was another Korean War fighter pilot.  After flights in both Mercury and Gemini spacecraft he was scheduled to command Apollo I.  But died in the tragic launch pad fire of January 27, 1967.

Alan Shepard was a WWII veteran of the surface Navy, later a test pilot.  He took up the first manned Mercury flight, a suborbital one.  He then had to wait ten years as an inner ear problem grounded him.  It seems as if it was worth it, as the Commander of Apollo 14 he became the fifth, and oldest man to walk on the moon.

There is a separate card that indexes the 55 card set.

The series comes in two versions.  One has a sort of 3D picture on the back.  The other, less common one, was a give away with Popsicles.

This seems to be one of the more valuable ones.  I guess everyone loves monkeys.

It's hard to imagine in these later and lesser times that anyone could become famous and admired with a visibly receding hairline and irregular teeth.  Its another facet of Celebrity sans Accomplishments.  There's nothing wrong with looking good.  It's just that in a sturdier era your looks were really not a deciding factor.

Alan Shepard 1923-1998