Featuring more than 600 photos, Photographing America's First Astronauts: Project Mercury Through the Lens of Bill Taub is the most complete photographic account of Project Mercury ever published. Previous Project Mercury books largely have relied on the relatively limited number of photos released by NASA. This book, however, showcases hundreds of never-before-seen images of America’s first manned space program by NASA’s first staff photographer, Bill Taub. Taub went everywhere with the Mercury astronauts, capturing their daily activities from 1959 to 1963. As a result, his photos provide a unique and intimate behind-the-scenes look at the people and operations of Project Mercury in real time. Drawing on Taub’s recently discovered archive of thousands of black-and-white and color prints, slides, and transparencies, this is the first book to comprehensively visually document Project Mercury. No previous book has devoted as many images to each of the Mercury Seven astronauts and their pioneering spaceflights. Other chapters cover astronaut selection and training, NASA management, and facilities at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Each image is accompanied by a detailed caption. The foreword is by legendary NASA Flight Director Eugene Kranz. "Bill's iconic images will live on forever. He and his camera acted as the eyes for all of us who couldn't be there. Bill captured the spirit and emotion of NASA's pioneering years through his images of astronaut training, launches, landings, and postflight celebrations. At every Apollo anniversary I photographed, the astronauts would embrace Bill as though he were part of the crew. I will always look to Bill and his work as the ultimate examples of what it means to be a storyteller for NASA, and I'm honored to have known him." — Bill Ingalls , senior contract photographer, NASA Headquarters "When I was selected for the second astronaut class, the Mercury missions were still underway. Bill Taub had already become a familiar presence, and he became well-known to all of us throughout the later Gemini and Apollo flights. These newly published photos showcase Bill's great skill in capturing the historic efforts of all the men and women who were instrumental in getting us safely into space and back down." — Lt. Gen. Thomas P. Stafford (USAF, Ret.), Gemini VI, Gemini IX, Apollo 10, Apollo-Soyuz "Bill was the ultimate photographer. He was a sight to behold with cameras hanging from his neck and arms. I still don't know how he did it. The astronauts trusted him to do the right thing and to take the right photo. Bill was such a nice guy, well-liked by all of us who knew him. He never intruded on the astronauts' privacy." — Dee O'Hara , nurse to the Project Mercury astronauts " Photographing America's First Astronauts: Project Mercury Through the Lens of Bill Taub hits home in ways that are unexpectedly poignant. It shows the U.S. at its gleaming best—a nation imbued with a spirit of adventure at a time when our leadership was eager to win." — Forbes " Photographing America's First Astronauts is another stunning success in a series of works that will undoubtedly be found on the bookshelf of everyone who loves the golden age of spaceflight." — Balloons to Drones "The sheer volume of photos and their detailed captions means this book gives an insight into the daily lives of the people of Project Mercury probably never seen since those eventful days." — SpaceFlight Photo historian and author J. L. Pickering has conducted photo research into the US manned space program for nearly fifty years―acquiring, organizing, and restoring more than 250,000 prints, slides, transparencies, and digital files, the largest such private archive. His sources include government archives, NASA retirees, news photographers, private collectors, and auction houses. One of the world’s leading manned space photography experts, he is regularly contacted by authors, retired astronauts, and even NASA for photo assistance. Journalist John Bisney is a retired national news correspondent who covered the US space program for more than thirty years for CNN Radio, RKO Radio, the Discovery Science Channel, and SiriusXM. He covered more than sixty-five space shuttle launches, including the Challenger and Columbia disasters. With Pickering, he has coauthored five space photography history books. Eugene Kranz was NASA’s second chief flight director, serving during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, including the first lunar landing mission, Apollo 11. He also directed the successful efforts by Mission Control to save the crew of Apollo 13. Kranz is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and his role as a flight controller during Mercury is illustrated in this book.