This  medal commemorates the seven Astronauts of the Project Mercury Space Flight missions. Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, and set the stage for the later Gemini and Apollo missions. The obverse shows busts of the seven Mercury Astronauts: Malcolm Scott Carpenter; Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr.; John Herschel Glenn, Jr.; Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom; Walter Marty Schirra, Jr.; Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr.; and Donald Kent Slayton. The reverse shows an Atlas rocket next to the Project Logo.