gus grissom ... wally schirra ... alan shepard ... and deke slayton. "it's the height of the cold war. these guys were cold warriors." the mercury seven became instant celebrities and for those engineering the country's first manned spacecraft, the pressure to deliver was reinforced as the all-seeing eyes of the press descended on their work. "we couldn't hardly get to work." "the traffic was unbelieveable. there was every tv station, every radio station, every tourist in the world, it looked like, was on the beach." "it was intense. we knew that we were behind. we had a job to do." "and it continued throughout the program 'cause we were behind all the way. we were behind on mercury." behind all the way. we were behind on mercury." "russia had such tremendous launch capability. they could lift payloads much heavier than we could." "we thought these russians were 10-feet tall." "they were kicking our ass. you know, we were blowing up rockets left and right." "and the newspapers would cover these very well and say, 'you guys must be nuts thinking you're