With his winged cap, winged shoes, eloquence, and ingenuity, Mercury seemed a more fitting namesake. Silverstein had suggested the name “Project Mercury,” in honor of the messenger of the gods in Roman mythology.

“Others at NASA feared that this name would draw undue attention to the personalities of the hand-picked aviators whom NASA’s army of engineers would soon blast into space,” writes Matthew Hersch in Inventing the American Astronaut. Gilruth, the head of the agency’s space task group, suggested the name “Project Astronaut.” As noted in Origins of NASA Names, “The term followed the semantic tradition begun with ‘Argonauts,’ the legendary Greeks who traveled far and wide in search of the Golden Fleece, and continued with ‘aeronauts’ -pioneers of balloon flight.” But while the term “astronaut” caught on to describe the human crew members of these missions, Project Astronaut did not. In this competitive context, the right name, which could inspire and motivate, was key. The Soviets had already launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, the previous year all indications were that they would soon launch a human into orbit (which they did in 1961, beating the Americans). found itself engaged in, opposite the U.S.S.R. While scientific exploration was, and continues to be, a prime motivator for NASA’s activities, its formation was also largely the result of the space race that the U.S. As 1958 drew to a close, the newborn agency began considering what to call its efforts.

Nasa meaning in latin