On May 5, 1961, NASA launched the Mercury Redstone 3 rocket to make Alan Shepard the first American in space on the historic Freedom 7 mission. See some amazing vintage photos from the from the ...

Alan Shepard was one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, and was the first American in space - launching on May 5, 1961. He selected Freedom as his spacecraft name in light of the Cold War space ...

On May 5, 1961, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American to go to space. He launched from Cape Canaveral on a Mercury-Redstone rocket in a space capsule named Freedom 7. This was the ...

The capsule that launched the first American into space more than 50 years ago will soon be moved from Maryland to Massachusetts, before ultimately landing in Washington, D.C. in 2016.

A contemporary NASA documentary on Alan Shepard's 1961 Mercury-Redstone 3 flight, with scenes of astronaut training and spacecraft preparation. Old-school style, but plenty of good footage.

Shepard himself would later walk on the Moon when he commanded the Apollo 14 mission in early 1971, less than 10 years after his Freedom 7 flight. He died on July 21, 1998.

On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard made history. Before lifting off, Shepard reportedly said to himself, "Don't mess up, Shepard." He spent 15 minutes flying in the Mercury capsule "Freedom 7," before a ...

On May 5, 1961, NASA launched the Mercury Redstone 3 rocket to make Alan Shepard the first American in space on the historic Freedom 7 mission. See some amazing vintage photos from the from the histor ...

Freedom 7, the Mercury spacecraft that NASA astronaut Alan Shepard rode on a 15-minute suborbital flight on May 5, 1961, is leaving the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., where it has been on ...