On April 9, 1959, NASA introduced its very first astronaut class. This dashing group of young men is known as the Mercury 7. They were all military test pilots before they were chosen for the job, and they had all "the right stuff" to take on such risky missions. But in a way, they essentially became guinea pigs for NASA's new human spaceflight program, because they didn't get to do much piloting inside the Mercury spacecraft. Some of the pilots weren't too happy about this. But the rest of the