Project Mercury Project Mercury, the first manned U.S. space project, became an official NASA program on October 7, 1958. The Mercury Program was given two main but broad objectives: 1. to investigate man’s ability to survive and perform in the space environment and 2. to develop basic space technology and hardware for manned space flight programs to come. NASA also had to find astronauts to fly the spacecraft. In 1959 NASA asked the U.S. military for a list of their members who met certain qualifications. All applicants were required to have had extensive jet aircraft flight experience and engineering training. The applicants could be no more