NASA Mercury 7 Astronaut pinback button display Schirra Grissom Glenn Cooper

Description

You're bidding here for a handsomely-framed display featuring pinback buttons for ALL SEVEN of the original Mercury 7 astronauts.
Most of these buttons were made at the time of their flights, as the nation celebrated its new heroes, and some are extremely rare.
Navy pilot
Alan Shepard
was America's first man in space making his "Freedom 7" suborbital flight on May 5, 1961.  This button is the only design made during the '60s.  Despite its age, it is in
exceptional condition
.
The Air Force's
Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom
followed in "Liberty Bell 7."  His flight was a complete success until shortly before recovery, when the hatch on his capsule prematurely blew, leading to its loss in the Atlantic until some 30 years later.  Though he showed up on several Gemini buttons, to my knowledge, there were NO Grissom buttons made during the Mercury era; the one pictured here is an original design, and
available no where else
.
John Glenn
, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marines, made the first orbital flight by a U.S. astronaut.  His three orbits in "Friendship 7" made him the most famous person in the world, and he leveraged that fame into a successful political career, before making his second space flight, on a shuttle, at the age of 77.  There were more buttons made celebrating Glenn's flight (more than 30 different designs) than for all the other astronauts put together; the
"Around the World in 80 Minutes"
is more common than some, but this is a
particularly nice example
.
Scott Carpenter
nearly became our first casualty in space, becoming so distracted by sightseeing that he depleted his fuel, screwed up the reentry, and ended up bobbing in his life raft for several hours while the recovery ships steamed at flank speed from where "Aurora 7" should have been brought down to where it actually
WAS
.  Still, for the good of the program, he was hailed as a hero (though never allowed to fly in space again.)  Despite being almost six decades old, this "Great Scott" button is in
great condition
.
Wally Schirra
, one of the most popular of the Mercury 7 with the public, made a picture perfect flight, completing six orbits, and bringing "Sigma 7" down for a splashdown within sight of his recovery ships.  He went on to become the only one of the original astronauts to fly in all three programs: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.  There are several variations of this 1962
"Hurrah for Schirra"
button, but all are very rare.  (The only other one currently offered on Ebay is
priced at 0
all by itself.)
Gordon Cooper
was the last Mercury astronaut, making 22 orbits of the Earth in "Faith 7."  There were five different Cooper buttons made at the time of his 1962 flight; the one included in this display is
the rarest of them
, showing Gordo tired but smiling on the deck of the USS Kearsarge.
Donald K. "Deke" Slayton
never flew during the Mercury program.  Grounded by a heart murmur, he instead became the chief of the astronaut office, and was instrumental in crew selections until the early shuttle program.  He finally got his shot in 1975, joining the crew of the joint US/Soviet mission Apollo-Soyuz.  However, this button (another
exclusive design
) shows him as he appeared during the Mercury program, serving as CAPCOM (Capsule Communicator) for one of his fellow astronauts.
The seven buttons are arranged around the "Mercury 7" symbol (combining the number 7 with the astronomical symbol for the planet Mercury) that the astronauts chose as their emblem.  3.75 inches tall, it has been rendered in gold-toned mirror acrylic, and looks great with the button collection, especially with the black metal frame.  (Please note: the glass was removed from the frame for the photos, to reduce reflections.)
This framed collection of authentic buttons celebrating America's original astronaut heroes will look great in your den or office.  You can spend a lot of time and money trying to assemble a collection like this, or you can get it all here, ready to display.  Bid now!