This informative post will be posted on Saturday along with my usual writing.  You are invited to participate with the opening question.

Brain Teaser Question

Rearranging the letters MEANYRG would give you the name of:

(A)  an animal

(B)  a state

(C)  a city

(D)  an ocean

(E)  a country

(answer found at the end of this post)

Featured Facts

On April 9, 1959, Americans met NASA’s original seven astronauts.  Selected from a group of 32, all seven had served as military test pilots.  They would take America’s fortunes forward with Project Mercury, the nation’s first attempts at manned space flight.

Here is a brief biographical sketch of each astronaut:

• Alan Shepherd (1923-1998), native of New Hampshire.  On May 5, 1961, he became the first American astronaut to complete a sub-orbital flight.
• Virgil (Gus) Grissom (1926-1967), native of Indiana.  On July 21, 1961, he completed another sub-orbital flight.
• John Glenn (1921-2016), native of Ohio.  On February 20, 1962, he successfully orbited three times around Earth.
• Scott Carpenter (1925-2013), native of Colorado.  On February 24, 1962, he successfully orbited Earth for five hours.
• Walter (Wally) Schirra (1923-2007), native of New Jersey.  On October 3, 1962, he completed six orbits in nine hours of flight along with completing a scientific mission.
• Gordon Cooper (1927-2004), native of Oklahoma.  On May 15, 1963, he completed the final and longest Project Mercury mission with a duration of 34 hours spent in space. 
• Donald (Deke) Slayton (1924-1993), native of Wisconsin.  He was grounded due to a medical condition, but he would be cleared to complete a mission in the 1970s.

Of the seven original astronauts, only Shepherd, Schirra, Grissom, and Cooper would carry out missions in the two-man Gemini flights or three-man Apollo flights.

Grissom would lose his life aboard Apollo 1 in 1967 during a training exercise accident in Florida.  Glenn would later be tapped to fly on the Space Shuttle in 1998 aboard Discovery.

Answer to Brain Teaser Question

(E)  a country

MEANYRG can spell GERMANY.