Video: 'Alan Shepard " Launch ", LIVE on TV at NBC, (Mercury / Redstone rocket), May 5, 1961'
(Friday, May 5, 1961, 9:34:13 a.m. EDT/14:34:13 UTC) — Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr., 37, became the first American in space today as Freedom 7 lifted off from Cape Canaveral.
Video: 'Alan Shepard, First American in Space, ABC news coverage, May 5, 1961'
Shepard’s rocket, first of the Mercury program, reached an altitude of 115 miles without achieving orbit, and was recovered 19 minutes later in the North Atlantic Ocean by the aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain.
Video: 'Alan Shepard - Ambassador of Exploration'
The mission was a technical success, though American pride in the accomplishment was damped by the fact that just three weeks before, the Soviet Union had launched the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, who completed one orbit on Vostok 1.
