{"id":187200,"date":"2024-04-11T16:26:11","date_gmt":"2024-04-11T21:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/04\/from-nasas-first-astronaut-class-to-artemis-ii-the-importance-of-military-jet-pilot-experience"},"modified":"2024-04-11T16:26:11","modified_gmt":"2024-04-11T21:26:11","slug":"from-nasas-first-astronaut-class-to-artemis-ii-the-importance-of-military-jet-pilot-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/04\/from-nasas-first-astronaut-class-to-artemis-ii-the-importance-of-military-jet-pilot-experience","title":{"rendered":"From NASA\u2019s First Astronaut Class to Artemis II: The Importance of Military Jet Pilot Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/from-nasas-first-astronaut-class-to-artemis-ii-the-importance-of-military-jet-pilot-experience.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>On April 9, 1959, reporters and news media crammed into the ballroom of the Dolley Madison House in Washington\u2014the location of NASA Headquarters at that time\u2014to learn the names of the first American astronauts who came to be known as the Mercury 7. Public Information Director Walter Bonney kicked off the announcement by pointing to the seven men sitting on stage. \u201cThese are our astronaut volunteers,\u201d he announced. \u201cTake your pictures as you will, gentlemen.\u201d One of those men on the dais, Deke Slayton, a test pilot from Edwards Air Force Base, recalled the pandemonium he witnessed. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen anything like it, before or since.\u201d He described the event as, \u201ca frenzy of light bulbs and questions\u2026it was some kind of roar.\u201d His colleague, Wally Schirra, a test pilot from Naval Air Station Patuxent River, called the media\u2019s interest scary because he soon came to realize that their, \u201cprivate lives were in jeopardy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On April 9, 1959, reporters and news media crammed into the ballroom of the Dolley Madison House in Washington\u2014the location of NASA Headquarters at that time\u2014to learn the names of the first American astronauts who came to be known as the Mercury 7. Public Information Director Walter Bonney kicked off the announcement by pointing to [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}