On this day 65 years ago, NASA introduced the first American astronauts — a group of military test pilots who became known as the “Mercury Seven,” named after the first manned U.S. space program, Project Mercury. See what they said about how they families reacted to the mission. | CBS News

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