The first US satellite was Explorer I, launched on January 31, 1958.
The first US manned flights were part of Project Mercury, which included a flight by a chimpanzee named Ham. In 1961, there were suborbital (up and back down) flights by Alan Shepard on May 5, 1961, and by Gus Grissom on July 21, 1961. Flight delays meant that these came after Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight for the USSR (April 12, 1961).
The first orbital flight for the US was by John Glenn on February 20, 1962. He made three orbits during a five-hour flight.
The first American in space was Alan Shepard, who spent 15 minutes in a sub-orbital flight on May 5, 1961.
Alan B. Shepard, Jr. was the first American in space, going on a short, sub-orbital flight on 5 May 1961.
Alan Shepard was the first American to travel into space less than a month after Russian Yuri Gagarin's historic flight. Shepard's suborbital flight on May 5, 1961, made him the second person, and the first American, to travel into space.
Alan B Shepard was the first American to fly in space onboard Freedom 7 on May 5th 1961.
Grissom's first flight on July 21, 1961 was the second flight by an American astronaut. Grissom's second flight on March 23, 1965 was the first flight of the Gemini spacecraft.
The American spacecraft that made its first flight in 1981 is the Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle was a reusable spacecraft that made numerous missions to space to transport crew and cargo to low Earth orbit. It played a pivotal role in shaping the United States' space program for over 3 decades.
No, The first American in space was Alan Shepard who went into space about a month after Yuri A. Gagarin (first man in space) did.
The USSR or Russia. They had the first satellite, the first animal in space, the first manned space flight, and the first space walk. But we beat them to the moon.
Alan Shepard was the first American to travel into space on May 5, 1961, aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft.
Depending if you mean any air flight of flight to space. First Space Shuttle was Columbia First Successful flight was over the English Channel.
The first U.S. spaceship in space was Freedom 7, piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard on May 5, 1961. This suborbital flight made Shepard the first American to travel to space.
The first American woman in space, Sally Ride, flew on June 18, 1983. As of October 2023, it has been 4 decades since her historic flight.