Mercury Redstone 3 was launched on May 5th, 1961 at 2.34 pm, UTC from Launch Complex 5 at Cape Canaveral. It is one of only a few sub-overdough flights that we covered by a mission profile, and that is because it was the first of four crude sub-overdough flights exceeding 100 kilometers now to be launched by the United States, two being Mercury cap seals on Redstone Rockets, and two being X-15 flights in 1991. Also known as Freedom 7, this mission was piloted by Alan Shepherd, who became the first American in space, achieving an apple abscess of 187.5 kilometers, and traveling 487 kilometers down range. The mission was due to last about 15 minutes, and was a precursor to launching the Mercury spacecraft into orbit on an Atlas rocket. Due to the short duration, though, there was no urine collectionate on Mercury, so when Shepherd was left waiting for launch for three hours, he ultimately asked him to see the mission to urinate in the suit, a simple pressure suit not really designed for that. All was well though, and Shepherd was able to try out manual control of the spacecraft in space, something that could not be tested with the preceding launch of Mercury Redstone 2 with hand the chip. Shepherd faced a peak acceleration of 11.6 Gs on the way back down, so as a rough ride, and brief, but he became the second human in space.