Original 7 astronauts in Mercury space suits. Front row, left to right, are Walter M. Schirra Jr., Donald K. Slayton, John H. Glenn Jr., and M. Scott Carpenter. Back row, from the left, are Alan B. Shepard Jr., Virgil I. Grissom and L. Gordon Cooper Jr. EDITOR'S NOTE: Since this photo was made: Grissom died on January 27, 1967, in the Apollo 1/Saturn 204 fire at Cape Kennedy, Florida; Slayton died June 13, 1993 in League City, Texas, from complications of a brain tumor. Astronauts Carpenter, Glenn, Schirra, Cooper and Shepard have either retired or resigned from the space program. U.S. Sen. John H. Glenn Jr. (D.-Ohio) has been assigned as payload specialist for the STS-95 mission of the Space Shuttle Discovery, scheduled for launch in late October of 1998.