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Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel into space and, in 1971, he became the fifth and oldest person to walk on the Moon, at age 47.
Alan Shepard piloted his Freedom 7 Mercury capsule for a 15 minute suborbital flight with no communication glitches. He was the first person from the US and the second person to enter space.
Alan Shepard became one of the original seven Mercury program astronauts in 1959. He later commanded the Apollo 14 flight.
Alan B. Shepard and Freedom 7 U.S. astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr., on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain on May 5, 1961, after the return of his Mercury spacecraft Freedom 7 (in background) from the first crewed suborbital flight.
Alan Shepard became the first American and the second man in space on May 5, 1961, when he piloted the Mercury spacecraft Freedom 7 on a 490-kilometer (300-mile), 15-minute suborbital flight.
On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space. He flew on a Mercury spacecraft. There was just enough room for one person. He named his capsule Freedom 7. It launched on a Redstone rocket. The Army first used the Redstone as a missile. On this flight, Shepard did not orbit Earth.
On May 5, 1961, Alan B. Shepard became the first American in space during a suborbital flight aboard his Mercury capsule named Freedom 7. Three weeks later, based on the success of Shepard’s brief flight, President John F. Kennedy committed the United States to achieving a lunar landing before the end of the decade.
Freedom 7 parachuted into the Atlantic just 15 minutes and 22 seconds later, after attaining a maximum velocity of 5,180 mph. Shepard, a Navy test pilot and NASA astronaut, became the first American to fly in space.
On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American to travel to space. His historic mission in the Freedom 7 spacecraft came a little over three weeks after the Soviet Union successfully made Yuri Gagarin the first person in space.
On May 5 of that year, a Redstone rocket launched America's first astronaut, Alan Shepard, beyond the earth's atmosphere, into space. Shepard's mission made him a national hero and put to rest any fears that the United States would be left behind in the space race.