Group 3 was the first to waive the requirement of a test pilot background, though military jet fighter aircraft experience was substituted.

This applied to Buzz Aldrin, Bill Anders, Gene Cernan, Roger Chaffee, Walter Cunningham and Rusty Schweickart; all the others were test pilots.

The launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, started a Cold War technological and ideological competition with the United States known as the Space Race.

This confidence was shattered on April 12, 1961, when the Soviet Union launched Vostok 1, and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit the Earth.

In response, President John F. Kennedy announced a far more ambitious goal on May 25, 1961: to put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade.

[8] The two-person Mercury II spacecraft concept was officially named Project Gemini on January 3, 1962.

Moreover, by mid-1963, three Mercury Seven astronauts—Scott Carpenter, John Glenn and himself—were no longer flying, leaving thirteen active astronauts.

[14] The key criteria were that candidates were: A selection panel was established, consisting of Mercury Seven astronauts Deke Slayton, Alan Shepard, Wally Schirra and John Glenn, and NASA test pilot Warren J.

Besides Adams, two other finalists later died in aircraft accidents: Alexander Kratz Rupp on June 11, 1965,[22] and Darrell Cornell on October 10, 1984.

[23] Finalist John D. Yamnicky was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77, and was killed when it crashed into the Pentagon during the September 11 attacks.

[24] The official announcement of the astronaut selection was made at a press conference at the MSC in Houston on October 18.

[26] Seven of the Fourteen were from the USAF: Major Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin and Captains William Anders, Charles Bassett, Michael Collins, Donn Eisele, Theodore Freeman and David Scott.

[16] "In retrospect," Collins noted, "we were in the same tradition as the previous two groups, despite the press's natural tendency to highlight differences.

President John F. Kennedy was disturbed at the lingering discrimination against African Americans in particular in the armed services, and in 1962 he brought pressure to bear on the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, General Curtis LeMay to nominate an African-American astronaut candidate.

Yeager asked, adding: "And if it was left to me, you guys wouldn't even get a chance to wear an Air Force uniform.

[30] The fourteen were given classroom instruction, which Collins felt was useful "to bridge the gap between aeronautics and astronautics, to minimize the technological shock we might otherwise experience".

[50] The training in geology included field trips to the Grand Canyon and Meteor Crater in Arizona, Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, Horse Lava Tube System in Bend, Oregon, and the ash flow in the Marathon Uplift in Texas.

[53] As the Mercury Seven and the Next Nine had done, each of the fourteen was given an individual area in which to develop expertise that could be shared with the others, and to provide astronaut input to designers and engineers: Aldrin was given mission planning; Anders, environment controls; Bassett, training and simulators; Bean, recovery systems; Cernan, spacecraft propulsion and the Agena; Chaffee, communications; Collins, pressure suits and extravehicular activity; Cunningham, non-flight experiments; Eisele, attitude controls; Freeman, boosters; Gordon, cockpit controls; Schweickart, in-flight experiments; Scott, guidance and navigation; and Williams, range operations and crew safety.

It included Pete Conrad from the Nine, and Anders, Cernan, Chaffee, Cunningham, Eisele, Freeman, Gordon and Schweickart from the fourteen.

Bassett, Freeman and Williams were killed in T-38 crashes, and Chaffee in the Apollo 1 fire, before they had a chance to fly in space.