Alan Shepard In Space!

50 years ago this month, Alan Shepard became the first American to fly into space.

Although the intensely celebrated accomplishment was technically much less challenging than that of Yuri Gagarin’s earlier flight, it was the event for which America had been waiting. (Gagarin’s flight orbited the Earth, while Shepard’s capsule stayed only on a 15-minute, ballistic trajectory).

Shepard, a U.S. Navy aviator and test pilot, was one of America’s original 7 “Space Heores”. Besides Project Mercury, Shepard also flew on Gemini, and later in 1969, he commanded Apollo 14 and landed on the moon.

Shepard died from leukemia in 1998, in Pebble Beach, California.