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| An 8 August 1960 NASA planning chart displayed nine manned Mercury Atlas missions in 1962, three in 1963, three in 1964, and two in 1965, with the last seven flights of the series directly supporting advanced technical development for Apollo. Taken in consideration with other documents, these 17 Mercury missions would appear to have been in the context of following the first manned orbital mission, then scheduled for November 1961 as Mercury Atlas 7. The planning at the time in the Mercury program was for two more three-orbit missions in 1962, followed by Mercury Atlas 10, a Manned One-Day Mission (MODM). Thus, the 8 August 1960 chart is understood to represent 14 additional MODMs, Mercury Atlas 11 through Mercury Atlas 24. This extended series of MODMs was intended to provide the spaceflight experience that new groups of astronauts would need before operating the more advanced Apollo spacecraft, which was then projected to begin Earth orbital missions in 1965 or 1966, and to fly men around the Moon by 1970. As the goal of the Apollo program became ambitious after May 1961, the extended MODM series evolved into a more capable Mercury Mark II spacecraft, and ultimately into the Gemini program.
The 12th MODM persisted in planning documents as late as 20 January 1961. Interpolating from NASA planning documents, it would have been scheduled for launch on 1 March 1964 as the 20th Mercury Atlas mission. It is speculated that the later MODMs would have been flown by NASA Group 2 (the New Nine) astronauts selected in September 1962, followed by NASA Group 3 astronauts selected in October 1963. The program insignia shown above is post factum. References:
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N A Armstrong 
F F Borman 
C Conrad 
J A Lovell 
J A McDivitt 
E M See 
T P Stafford 
E H White 
J W Young |
