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The first American in space

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See larger Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. approaches his Freedom 7 capsule, ready to climb in for his historic launch on May 5, 1961.

Photo by NASA

Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. approaches his Freedom 7 capsule, ready to climb in for his historic launch on May 5, 1961.

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  • Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. approaches his Freedom 7 capsule, ready to climb in for his historic launch on May 5, 1961.
  • May 5 is the 50th anniversary of the first U.S manned space flight. Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., posing here in his Mercury flight suit, was born in New Hampshire in 1923. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1944, he served in World War II and became a Navy test pilot. Of NASA's choice of test pilots, Shepard said, ''If you were going to put a pilot in it, it was going to have to fly somehow ... when you have a strange new machine, then you go to the test pilots.'' Shepard launched from Cape Canaveral in 1961, making suborbital flight in Freedom 7.
  • Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., peers into his Freedom 7 Mercury capsule before launch on the morning of May 5, 1961. In early 1961, NASA announced that Shepard, Gus Grissom and John Glenn would make the first three flights. It wasn't made public then, but Shepard knew he had the first flight. Shepard said he was ''totally elated that I had won the competition.'' But almost immediately afterwards he felt sorry for his buddies, ''because there they were ... trying just as hard as I was.''
  • The Redstone booster carrying Mercury astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr. lifts off from Cape Canaveral at 9:34 a.m. Eastern on May 5, 1961. His 15 minute sub-orbital flight lifted him to an altitude of over 116 miles and a maximum speed of 5,134 miles per hour. Shepard had become the first American in space, kicking off the program he referred to as ''one step in the evolution of space travel.''
  • In this view, the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) spacecraft carrying Alan Shepard in Freedom 7 is already headed towards its suborbital maneuver, shortly after lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
  • A Marine helicopter picks up Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard and his Freedom 7 capsule in the Atlantic Ocean after his first American sub-orbital flight on May 5, 1961. Engineers said the spacecraft was in such great shape it could be reused. Doctors said Shepard could be used again too. Only 11 minutes after landing, he was onboard the U.S. Navy carrier Lake Champlain, where he took a congratulatory phone call from President Kennedy.
  • On May 5, 1961 Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. arrives at Grand Bahamas Island and is greeted by astronaut Virgil I. (Gus) Grissom after the first American suborbital flight.
  • President John F. Kennedy presents astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. with NASA's Distinguished Service Medal Award in a Rose Garden ceremony on May 8, 1961, at the White House. Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson, NASA Administrator James E. Webb and several NASA astronauts are in the background. Just three weeks later, Kennedy would commit America to landing a man on the moon before the end of the decade.
  • Fifty years ago on May 5, 1961 only 23 day after Yuri Gagarin of the then-Soviet Union became the first person in space, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard launched at 9:34 a.m. EDT aboard his Freedom 7 capsule powered by a Redstone booster to become the first American in space. His historic flight lasted 15 minutes, 28 seconds.

On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American i space.

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