Alan Shepherd
Alan B Shepard was the first American to fly in space onboard Freedom 7 on May 5th 1961.
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 in space was Alan Shepard, who spent 15 minutes in a sub-orbital flight on May 5, 1961.
The first US manned space flight, Mercury-Redstone 3, also known as Freedom 7, took place on May 5, 1961. The flight, piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard, lasted approximately 15 minutes and 22 seconds. During this brief suborbital flight, Shepard reached an altitude of about 116.5 miles (187.5 kilometers) before safely returning to Earth.
US Navy pilot and astronaut Alan Shepard (1923-1998) became the first US man in space when he flew a suborbital rocket flight in his Freedom 7 spacecraft on May 5, 1961. He flew approximately 303 miles in the 15-minute flight, reaching a maximum altitude of 116.5 miles.
Alan B Shepard was the first American to fly in space onboard Freedom 7 on May 5th 1961.
John Glenn.
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 in space was Alan Shepard, who spent 15 minutes in a sub-orbital flight on May 5, 1961.
The first US manned space flight, Mercury-Redstone 3, also known as Freedom 7, took place on May 5, 1961. The flight, piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard, lasted approximately 15 minutes and 22 seconds. During this brief suborbital flight, Shepard reached an altitude of about 116.5 miles (187.5 kilometers) before safely returning to Earth.
There were several unmanned rocket and missile tests that were "suborbital" as early as 1957, pushing payloads into high altitudes. Later tests lofted monkeys and chimps briefly into space. The first MANNED suborbital flight for the US was the Freedom 7 capsule piloted by US Navy CDR Alan B. Shepard (1923-1998) on May 5, 1961. The Mercury-Redstone 3 rocket did not provide the necessary thrust for Shepard to achieve a complete orbit of the Earth, as the USSR's Yuri Gagarin had done three weeks earlier. CDR Shepard (later RADM) had one other space "first". Commanding the Apollo 14 lunar mission ten years later in 1971, he was the first person to ever hit a golf ball on the moon.
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.
US Navy pilot and astronaut Alan Shepard (1923-1998) became the first US man in space when he flew a suborbital rocket flight in his Freedom 7 spacecraft on May 5, 1961. He flew approximately 303 miles in the 15-minute flight, reaching a maximum altitude of 116.5 miles.
Astronauts do not become an astronaut until they complete their training and perform a successful spaceflight higher than 100 kilometers. Using that criteria, the first astronaut was Alan B. Shepard, who flew Freedom 7 on a suborbital flight on May 5, 1961.
John Glenn made America's first orbital flight on February 20,1962. The Russians beat us to it, but John Glenn was the first astronaut.
Russians Went to Space FirstThe US space program (under NASA and the military branches) were competing with the space program in the Soviet Union (Russia). The Russians launched the first manned spacecraft (with cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin) into orbit on April 12, 1961. The US Mercury program launched two suborbital flights into space (Alan Shepard and then Gus Grissom) on May 5 and July 21, 1961, but did not achieve an orbital flight (with John Glenn) until February 20, 1962.
US astronaut Alan Shepard (1923-1998) was 47 when he walked on the Moon as part of the Apollo 14 mission (February 1971). He was the "first astronaut in space" for the US during his suborbital flight in February 1962, as well as the first man to play golf on the Moon.