Before the Apollo Program, there was the Gemini Program, and before Gemini came the Mercury Program. 7 elite astronauts chosen from a pool of military test pilots. How did NASA choose these original 7 men?
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Actually, the Atlas was an ICBM designed and built by General Dynamics. The Titan launch vehicle used in the Gemini program was also based on an ICBM. The Saturn series of boosters used in Apollo were the first non-military based rockets.
Mercury was just a series of timer that went off.
Just sit, press the big button and then a series of timers staged the events.
Gemini was all mechanical and gave the astronauts complete control.
Apollo, what was actually a parallel project was all about making the Apollo astronauts believe that they had control. The spacecraft was in reality steered from Earth by Computer nerds.