From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett-Sheppard Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 Space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA. NASA was established in 1958 to keep US space efforts abreast of recent Soviet achievements, such as the launching of the world's first artificial satellite Sputnik 1 in 1957. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the two superpowers raised to become the first country to put a man in space and return him to Earth. On April 12, 1961, the Soviet space program won the race when Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was launched into space, putting orbit around the planet, and safely returned to Earth. One month later, Shepard's suborbital flight restored faith in the US space program. NASA continued to trail the Soviets closely until the late 1960s and the successes of the Apollo Lunar Program. In July 1969, the Americans took a giant leap forward with Apollo 11, a three-stage spacecraft that took US astronauts to the surface of the Moon and returned them to Earth. On February 5, 1971, Alan Shepard, the first American in space, became the fifth astronaut to walk on the Moon as part of the Apollo 14 lunar landing. Don't forget to give a like, share with your friends, click subscribe and the notification bell for more fantastic videos. Follow our Instagram and Facebook page. Thanks for watching see you in our next video.