WASHINGTON (AP) — Early U.S. space history is fading with the death of John Glenn, the last of the Mercury 7 astronauts, and the 2012 passing of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. But others survive, veterans of a time when Americans were glued to their television sets to watch their heroics, from fiery Saturn V launches to ocean splashdowns.

More than half of the first 30 astronauts NASA hired have died; 19 Apollo astronauts are still with us, including seven of the dozen men who walked on the moon. "There's going to come a time and it's probably going to be in the next decade...