Alan Shepard became the first American to venture into space #OTD in 1961! Squeezing into the tiny "Freedom 7" capsule, Shepard's 15-minute suborbital flight was just a few weeks after Yuri Gagarin's landmark trip to space.
Watch highlights of this day ▶️ https://go.nasa.gov/3AKgGDy
#NASAhistory
60 Years of Human Spaceflight: Launching The First American into Space
Sixty years ago, on May 5, 1961, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard Jr. launched on the Freedom 7 mission, powered by a Mercury-Redstone rocket to become the first ...YouTube