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Houston, Texas

A capsule control panel.

Time for a little run-down on the various NASA space missions. From 1961 to 1972, there were three phases to America's space program, namely, Mercury (1961-1965), Gemini (1965-1966), and Apollo (1967-1972).

The first phase, Project Mercury, was initiated in response to a mounting space-race between the United States and the Soviet Union. The overall goal of the project was to build a manned spacecraft that could preserve human life during orbit around the Earth in the dangerous environment of space.

Some of the manned space flights.