NASA marks 60th anniversary of first American in space onboard Freedom 7 capsule

On May 5, 1961, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. became the first man to reach space onboard the Freedom 7 space capsule. On Thursday, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) commemorated the 60th anniversary of the first American astronaut that travelled approximately 116 miles in space. Taking to its official Twitter handle, NASA wrote: “60 years ago today, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American to travel in space, climbing 116 miles (188 km) above Earth. Shortly after, President John F. Kennedy committed the United States to a lunar landing before the end of the decade.” Shephard had led the United States as a country in its space efforts during the cold war era with the Soviet Union. Moscow had launched its world’s first satellite Sputnik 1 in 1957. Both US and the Soviet Union found were locked in a race to put the first human being into space.

[Credit: NASA]

First suborbital flight to space

In 1958, US NASA initiated Project Mercury under which it selected its first group of astronauts in 1959 to begin training for the world’s first manned mission. Meanwhile, Moscow started its own human spaceflight program, under which it shortlisted a team of 20 cosmonauts in 1960. In April 1961 Russian cosmonaut Yuri A. Gagarin completed a single orbit around the Earth aboard Moscow made Vostok capsule. However, Shepherd took the first suborbital flight to the space that earmarked President John F. Kennedy’s vision of the US achieving the world’s first lunar landing before the end of the decade.

[Credit: NASA]

“Inclement weather scrubbed the first launch attempt on May 2, 1961, and NASA decided it was time to announce that Shepard would indeed be making the first flight. On May 5, the weather proved more cooperative and Shepard climbed aboard Freedom 7 atop the Redstone rocket poised on Launch Pad 5 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, now the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, in Florida,” NASA explained in the release. 

[Credit: NASA]

Project Mercury was started by NASA’s The Space Task Group (STG) at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. It struck a contract with McDonnell Aircraft Corporation of St Louis to design the spacecraft and took its first successful test flight in December 1960. NASA also selected its first first-ever group of astronauts on April 9, 1959. The group consisting of M. Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper, John H. Glenn, Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Walter M. Schirra, Alan B. Shepard, and Donald K. “Deke” Slayton called themselves the Mercury 7 astronauts. As the US launched its first manned mission, an estimated 45 million Americans anxiously watched the liftoff on live television, including the then President of the US Kennedy at the White House. “After more than two hours of delays due to technical issues, the rocket engine ignited at 9:34 a.m. Eastern time, propelling Shepard skyward and into the history books,” said NASA. 

[Credit: NASA]

[Credit: NASA]