USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -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.

Detailed explanation-2: -Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman. 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.

Detailed explanation-3: -On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American-and the second man-to travel in space when he launched a 15-minute, sub-orbital flight aboard NASA’s Mercury spacecraft Freedom 7. (Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had completed one orbit of the Earth on April 12, about three weeks earlier.)

Detailed explanation-4: -Shepard gets selected “Not because of the fame or the recognition, ” Shepard once said, “but because America’s best test pilots went through this selection process, down to seven guys, and of those seven, I was the one to go.”

Detailed explanation-5: -May 5, 1961. Just 23 days after Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union became the first person in space, NASA launched astronaut Alan Shepard aboard the Freedom 7 capsule powered by a Redstone booster to become the first American in space.