The first American in space - May 05, 1961 - HISTORY.com This Day in History: 05/05/1961 - The first American in space In This Day in History video clip - May 5, 1961: The first American in space - Cape Canaveral, Florida, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard 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). Lead Story The first American in space Share this: The first American in space Author The first American in space URL Publisher A+E Networks From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard 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 U.S. 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 raced 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, put in orbit around the planet, and safely returned to Earth. One month later, Shepard’s suborbital flight restored faith in the U.S. 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 U.S. 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 mission. Related Videos Yuri Gagarin: First Man in Space Yuri Gagarin: First Man in Space | The Greatest Moments in Flight By Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com Contributor | July 24, 2012 02:00pm ET MORE On 12 April 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space when he launched into orbit on the Vostok 3KA-3 spacecraft (Vostok 1). Credit: ESA This is part of a SPACE.com series of articles on the Greatest Moments in Flight, the breakthrough events that paved the way for human spaceflight and its next steps: asteroid mining and bases on the moon and Mars. The United States and the Soviet Union vigorously competed to push the boundaries of mankind's exploration of space. The Russians scored a victory when they launched a small craft carrying cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin to new heights.

His 108-minute flight gave him a permanent place in the history books as the first man in space. The race to the stars With the 1957 launch of Sputnik 1, the world's first manmade satellite, the Russians took an early lead in the space race. The next step was to send a human off the planet. The American plan to send a man into space by 1961 created a deadline that the Russian team worked hard to beat. The development of the Vostok spacecraft became paramount. Prior to Gagarin’s historic flight, the Soviets sent a prototype of his spaceship, along with a life-size dummy called Ivan Ivanovich and a dog called Zvezdochka. With these successes, the vessel was considered ready to take a living, breathing human into space. [ INFOGRAPHIC: How the First Human Spaceflight Worked ] The right stuff More than 200 Russian Air Force fighter pilots were selected as cosmonaut candidates. Such pilots were considered optimum because they had exposure to the forces of acceleration and the ejection process, as well as experience with high-stress situations. Among the pilots was 27-year-old Senior Lieutenant Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin.

The third of four children, Gagarin was born on March 9, 1934, in a small village a hundred miles from Moscow. As a teenager, Gagarin witnessed a Russian Yak fighter plane make an emergency landing near his home. When offered a chance years later to join a flying club, he eagerly accepted, making his first solo flight in 1955. Only a few years later, he submitted his request to be considered as a cosmonaut. [ PHOTOS: Yuri Gagarin & 50 Years of Human Spaceflight ] First in (space) flight On April 12, 1961, at 9:07 a.m. Moscow time, the Vostok 1 spacecraft blasted off from the Soviets' launch site. Because no one was certain how weightlessness would affect a pilot, the spherical capsule had little in the way of onboard controls; the work was done either automatically or from the ground. If an emergency arose, Gagarin was supposed to receive an override code that would allow him to take manual control, but Sergei Korolov, chief designer of the Soviet space program, disregarded protocol and gave it to the pilot prior to the flight.

Over the course of 108 minutes, Vostok 1 traveled around the Earth once, reaching a maximum height of 203 miles (327 kilometers). Over Africa, the engines fired to bring Gagarin back to Earth. The craft carried ten days worth of provisions in case the engines failed and Gagarin was required to wait for the orbit to naturally decay, but they were unnecessary. Gagarin re-entered Earth's atmosphere, experiencing forces up to eight times the pull of gravity, but remained consciousness. Vostok 1 had no engines to slow its re-entry or a way to land safely. About four miles up (seven kilometers), Gagarin ejected and parachuted to Earth. In order for the mission to be counted as an official spaceflight, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), the governing body for aerospace records, had determined that the pilot must land with the spacecraft. Soviet leaders indicated that Gagarin had touched down with the Vostok 1, and did not reveal that he had ejected until 1971. Regardless, Gagarin still set the record as the first man to leave Earth's orbit and travel into space.

[ Milestones in Human Spaceflight: Pictures ] After the mission Upon his return to Earth, Gagarin was an international hero. He was cheered in Red Square by a crowd of hundreds of thousands. A national treasure, he traveled around the world to celebrate the historical Soviet achievement. On returning home, he became a deputy of the Supreme Soviet and was appointed Commander of the Cosmonauts' Detachment. Because Russia did not want to risk such a public figure, they were hesitant to allow him back into space. He continued to make test flights for the Air Force, however. On March 27, 1968, Gagarin was killed in while test-piloting a MiG-15. He was survived by his wife, Valentina Ivanovna Goryacheva, and two daughters. When Apollo 11 touched down on the moon in July 1969, the crew left behind a commemorative medallion bearing Gagarin’s name, as well as medallions for another cosmonaut and three Apollo astronauts who lost their lives in accidents. First Americans in space Alan Shepard flew in space on May 5, 1961, the first American to do so.

He launched aboard a Mercury-Redstone 3 rocket named Freedom 7. The suborbital flight lasted 15 minutes. Credit: NASA Alan Shepard was the first American in space and the second person in space, launching on a suborbital flight in a Mercury capsule called Freedom 7 on May 5, 1961 — just three weeks after Gagarin's flight. [ Pictures of the First American in Space ] Shepard is said to have been frustrated that the United States did not win the race. The Soviet victory could have been prevented , Shepard reportedly felt, had NASA not delayed his mission multiple times for tests. "I think he was a little bit frustrated with NASA for, in his mind, being a little bit overly cautious," according to Neal Thompson, author of "Light This Candle: The Life and Times of Alan Shepard" (Three Rivers Press, 2005). "He was a little bit pissed off that they delayed it so much that the Russians were able to get up there first." John Glenn was the first American in orbit , launching in the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule on Feb. 20, 1962.

Glenn orbited Earth three times during the flight, which took place 10 months after Gagarin’s mission. [ Pictures of the First American in Orbit ] The first woman in space was Valentina Tereshkova, a Soviet cosmonaut who flew the Vostok 6 mission on June 16, 1963. The first American woman in space was Sally Ride , who was a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger on flight STS-7 on June 18, 1983. —Nola Taylor Redd & Robert Roy Britt Related: First Space Flights | NASA: Challenging the Space Frontier | Scholastic.com John Glenn is not picked to be the first American in space. Why is it sometimes better not to be first? Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin onboard Vostok 1 (UPI/Corbis/Bettmann) Alan Shepard leaves the Freedom 7 capsule after splashdown. (NASA) First Space Flights NASA had hoped that one of its astronauts would be the first human in space. But on April 12, 1961, the Soviets successfully launch Yuri Gagarin into orbit.

He circles Earth in 108 minutes and lands safely. On May 5, 1961, less than a month after Gagarin's flight, the U.S. sends astronaut Alan Shepard into space. His 15-minute sub-orbital flight doesn't impress the Soviets. But it shows that the Americans are still in the race. In July, astronaut Gus Grissom repeats Shepard's brief hop into space. But after splashdown, his capsule sinks. Grissom almost drowns. Then, in August, a second Soviet flight lasts 25 hours, circles the globe 16 times, and lands safely. John Glenn, the backup astronaut for both Shepard and Grissom, is scheduled to fly in January 1962. His mission is to circle Earth. If Glenn is successful, the Americans  just like the Soviets  will be able to send warheads anywhere on the planet. After several delays, John Glenn is awakened at 2:20 a.m. for a planned 7:30 launch on February 20, 1962. He is ready.

First US manned space flight, 1961 - Stock Image C007/4504 - Science Photo Library First US manned space flight, 1961 C007/4504 Rights Managed Credit: NASA/VRS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Caption: First US manned space flight, 1961. Alan Shepard (1923-1998), on board the Freedom 7 spacecraft capsule just prior to the launch of the Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) mission, on 5th May 1961. MR-3 was part of the Mercury program and the first American mission to put a human in Space. It made Shepard the first American in space, and the second person worldwide after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin - who had made his flight in April of that year. Shepherd's flight lasted less than 16 minutes, reaching a height of 187 kilometres. Unlike Gagarin, Shepherd did not orbit the Earth. Photographed on 5th May 1961, at Launch Complex 5 (LC-5), Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA. Release details: Model release not available.

Property release not required. What Yuri Gagarin Saw on First Space Flight What Yuri Gagarin Saw on First Space Flight New film re-creates 1961 views of Earth from space. View Images Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who made the first orbit of Earth in 1961. Photograph by Popperfoto/Getty Images Fifty years after the fact, details about Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin 's historic first mission into space—highlighted today by a Google Doodle —are still creeping out from behind a shroud of secrecy. Related Content (Also see "On Yuri Gagarin's Night, Spy the Space Station Flying Overhead." ) More concerned about survival than documentary footage, Gagarin brought back sparse imagery of his monumental voyage—and obviously nothing in full-color HD. "What Gagarin did is something of galactic significance, and it needs marking in some way other than crackly, black-and-white footage," said film director Christopher Riley. Now Riley hopes to re-create this piece of history with the worldwide, online premiere of his new Gagarin movie, First Orbit .

Watch First Orbit: Re-creation of Yuri Gagarin's First Views From Space Posted on YouTube at midnight GMT on April 12, the roughly 108-minute film blends a few 1960s historic reels with modern shots taken from the International Space Station (ISS) by Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli. His video not only retraces Gagarin's view from orbit, it shows Earth bathed in sunlight at the same angle the cosmonaut would have seen during his 1961 flight. We chatted with Riley about his inspiration for the film, the challenges of shooting a movie vicariously from space, and the changes that have happened on Earth since the human race first put a man into orbit. How did you first get the notion to "refilm" Yuri Gagarin's flight? I hadn't been born when Gagarin went into space—I was minus six. But by the time I was born, people were regularly landing on the moon and sending spacecraft to Mars, so I grew up unable to not be excited about space flight. ( Explore a space travel time line. ) However, I was always somewhat disappointed that the first person in space [Gagarin] didn't film much.

( Watch video from the dawn of the space race. ) Then in early 2010 they installed the cupola on the ISS, and it offered this amazing new perspective on Earth from space. So I emailed the European Space Agency and said, What do you think? Could we do it? ( See first pictures taken from the ISS cupola. ) Their first action was to put me in touch with one of their orbital mechanics gurus, who worked out whether the ISS covers the same ground as Vostok 1 [Gagarin's spaceship]. It turns out we would have a chance to film every six weeks, but Paolo flew up to the station at the end of November last year, and the crews on the station work very hard—they're always doing something, so it was a challenge fitting this into his schedule. We had one shot at this around Christmas last year for Paolo to film before the 50th anniversary. Do you ever see Paolo during the film? Not directly, but there is one scene when Paolo slightly appears in reflection in the window as he floats in to adjust the cameras—it's that Hitchcock moment!

[That scene helped fill in] the problem of what to show as Yuri headed into darkness near the start of the flight, about 30 minutes in. [For a 40-minute period during his 1961 flight, Yuri passed over parts of Earth where it was night, meaning that what he saw were] dark conditions over the Pacific Ocean. So we had to use shots from an image-intensified camera that NASA flew for us to shoot over the Pacific, and we added a shot of the moon, because Yuri had looked for the moon, but he didn't get to see it. How do you think the view of Earth has changed between what Yuri Gagarin saw in 1961 and what Nespoli captured on film in 2010? When Yuri flew 50 years ago, there was not much human impact you could see from 200 miles up. Today we have double the population as in the 1960s, and there is more of a visible impact.

NASA astronaut John Young—who flew Gemini, Apollo, and space shuttle missions—has said that he's been going into orbit for about 30 years, and he's seen the way Earth has changed over that time, especially the atmosphere. (Also see "Apollo 11: Five Little-Known Facts About the Moon Landing." ) Cities today seem to have their own atmospheres due to pollution. Actual boundaries between countries are also very clear now. Certain counties have overgrazed ground, and big sprawling cities are very visible from space. Still, Yuri's route around Earth was over very sparsely populated areas that are largely unchanged 50 years later, so we see little change in human terms. The movie sounds like a massive effort! What sparked you to release it on YouTube? Right from the beginning we wanted to share the film with as many people as possible for free, in the same way Yuri's flight was done. It's true world militaries and governments were scared and anxious about the space race , but most of the public was just jubilant about it. As a species we'd sent a human being into space, and how fantastic was that, and it didn't matter what country he was from.

When Yuri landed, the streets were packed with people who thought he was the greatest man in history. We kind of wanted to instill the same reaction, and allow people to watch from anywhere and show it wherever they want. Right now we know of 600 screenings taking place around world, from museums to people's backyards, and we're hoping to see upward of a million viewers in the next 24 hours. Originally posted on the National Geographic magazine blog Pop Omnivore , which casts a critical eye on the way popular culture deals with National Geographic’s interests, from global warming to mayfly swarming. Related Space-Age Content First man in space - Apr 12, 1961 - HISTORY.com First man in space Publisher A+E Networks On April 12, 1961, aboard the spacecraft Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin becomes the first human being to travel into space. During the flight, the 27-year-old test pilot and industrial technician also became the first man to orbit the planet, a feat accomplished by his space capsule in 89 minutes.

Vostok 1 orbited Earth at a maximum altitude of 187 miles and was guided entirely by an automatic control system. The only statement attributed to Gagarin during his one hour and 48 minutes in space was, “Flight is proceeding normally; I am well.” After his historic feat was announced, the attractive and unassuming Gagarin became an instant worldwide celebrity. He was awarded the Order of Lenin and given the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Monuments were raised to him across the Soviet Union and streets renamed in his honor. The triumph of the Soviet space program in putting the first man into space was a great blow to the United States, which had scheduled its first space flight for May 1961. Moreover, Gagarin had orbited Earth, a feat that eluded the U.S. space program until February 1962, when astronaut John Glenn made three orbits in Friendship 7. By that time, the Soviet Union had already made another leap ahead in the “space race” with the August 1961 flight of cosmonaut Gherman Titov in Vostok 2. Titov made 17 orbits and spent more than 25 hours in space.

To Soviet propagandists, the Soviet conquest of space was evidence of the supremacy of communism over capitalism. However, to those who worked on the Vostok program and earlier on Sputnik (which launched the first satellite into space in 1957), the successes were attributable chiefly to the brilliance of one man: Sergei Pavlovich Korolev. Because of his controversial past, Chief Designer Korolev was unknown in the West and to all but insiders in the USSR until his death in 1966. Born in the Ukraine in 1906, Korolev was part of a scientific team that launched the first Soviet liquid-fueled rocket in 1933. In 1938, his military sponsor fell prey to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s purges, and Korolev and his colleagues were also put on trial. Convicted of treason and sabotage, Korolev was sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp. The Soviet authorities came to fear German rocket advances, however, and after only a year Korolev was put in charge of a prison design bureau and ordered to continue his rocketry work.

In 1945, Korolev was sent to Germany to learn about the V-2 rocket, which had been used to devastating effect by the Nazis against the British. The Americans had captured the rocket’s designer, Wernher von Braun, who later became head of the U.S. space program, but the Soviets acquired a fair amount of V-2 resources, including rockets, launch facilities, blueprints, and a few German V-2 technicians. By employing this technology and his own considerable engineering talents, by 1954 Korolev had built a rocket that could carry a five-ton nuclear warhead and in 1957 launched the first intercontinental ballistic missile. That year, Korolev’s plan to launch a satellite into space was approved, and on October 4, 1957, Sputnik 1 was fired into Earth’s orbit. It was the first Soviet victory of the space race, and Korolev, still technically a prisoner, was officially rehabilitated.

The Soviet space program under Korolev would go on to numerous space firsts in the late 1950s and early ’60s: first animal in orbit, first large scientific satellite, first man, first woman, first three men, first space walk, first spacecraft to impact the moon, first to orbit the moon, first to impact Venus, and first craft to soft-land on the moon. Throughout this time, Korolev remained anonymous, known only as the “Chief Designer.” His dream of sending cosmonauts to the moon eventually ended in failure, primarily because the Soviet lunar program received just one-tenth the funding allocated to America’s successful Apollo lunar landing program. Korolev died in 1966. Upon his death, his identity was finally revealed to the world, and he was awarded a burial in the Kremlin wall as a hero of the Soviet Union. Yuri Gagarin was killed in a routine jet-aircraft test flight in 1968. His ashes were also placed in the Kremlin wall. Related Videos Early Manned Spaceflight, First Spaceflight Information, Facts, News, Photos -- National Geographic Space Photograph courtesy NASA NASA's first human spaceflight program was Project Mercury.

This ambitious undertaking was launched in 1958—about a year after the U.S.S.R. had signified the start of the Space Age with the successful launch of the satellite Sputnik 1. The Mercury missions began the space race in earnest and drew upon the vast resources of the U.S. government and private sector—an estimated two million Americans contributed. Testing the limits of the human body in space was an important objective of both space programs. To this end robots and animals were blasted aloft—most notably Mercury's Ham the chimpanzee and the Soviet dog Laika. Though Ham returned to Earth and a comfortable retirement at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., Laika died aboard Sputnik 2 in 1957. First Humans in Space Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space when he orbited the Earth in a Vostok spacecraft on April 12, 1961. About a month later Alan Shepard, Jr. became the first American in space on May 5, 1961, when he was launched aboard Mercury-Redstone 3.

His 15-minute flight, dubbed "Freedom 7," was watched by some 45 million television viewers. Between 1961 and 1963, six manned spacecraft flew as part of the Mercury project. Mercury pilots rode in wingless capsules, which detached from their launch rocket and fell back to Earth. The small craft were designed to withstand the tremendous temperatures of reentering the planet's atmosphere and also survive a dramatic splashdown in the ocean. Just a few weeks after Shepard's flight, President John F. Kennedy announced his intent to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The challenge signaled the birth of NASA's Gemini and Apollo missions. Yet Mercury had more to accomplish. In February 1962 John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on the Friendship 7 mission. NASA's Gemini program was designed to refine spacecraft so that they could perform rendezvous, docking, and other advanced maneuvers that would be necessary to land an astronaut on the moon and return to Earth. As the missions of this era grew longer, astronauts became more adept at living within their spacecraft and even venturing outside it.

Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov became the first person to exit an orbiting spacecraft in March 1965. Moon Landing The launch of the Apollo missions precipitated an American triumph in the space race and was a major first in space exploration. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first people to reach the moon when they touched their lunar lander down in the Sea of Tranquility. Before the Apollo project ended in 1972, five other missions visited the moon. The Apollo spacecraft included a command/service module, which could orbit the moon, and a lunar module that astronauts could detach, land on the moon, and then blast off to rejoin the orbiting command module for the return trip to Earth. Later missions carried a lunar rover that could be driven across the satellite's surface and saw astronauts spend as long as three days on the moon. The Apollo missions achieved tremendous successes, but they came with a terrible cost. Astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee were killed in a launchpad fire during training before the first Apollo flight.

When the Apollo missions ended in 1972, the first era of human space exploration closed. History of Manned Spaceflight History of Manned Spaceflight History of Manned Spaceflight - Part 1: THE PIONEERS Yuri Gagarin: first human being to journey into outer space It was 50 years ago that man first ventured into space. On April 12, 1961, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth in Vostok 1 (Vostok 3KA-3) on a flight lasting 108 minutes and became the first human being to leave the confines of the Earth's atmosphere. The space capsule was carried aloft by a Vostok 8K72K rocket, derived from the R-7 ICBM, from a launch site that was claimed to be at 47oN 65oE, not far from the mining town of Baikonur in Kazakhstan. In fact the true launch site was about 320km to the southwest, near Tyuratam railway station and the name 'Baikonur' was used to cause confusion and keep the location secret.

Presently known as Gagarin's Start (45.920278oN 63.342222oE) the launch pad is part of the world's largest operational space launch facility now known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Gagarin before entering "Vostok" The full details of Gagarin's flight were submitted to the FAI by The USSR Central Aero Club V. P. Tchkalov on May 26, 1961, requesting that records for flight duration (108minutes), altitude (327km) and mass lifted to this altitude (4725kg) be recognised as World Records. Two copies of the Records File were provided, one in Russian and the other in English, each consisting of a title page and 16 numbered leaves, including Gagarin's own flight report signed in ink, and black-and-white photographs of Gagarin in uniform, Gagarin in his flight suit and an inside view of the Vostok capsule.

Gagarin begins his statement by saying that “On the 12th of April, 1961, the Soviet spaceship-sputnik 'Vostok' was put in orbit around the Earth with me on board”. He goes on to describe briefly his training, physical fitness and the beginning of the flight “ ... In the course of the powered flight, in the ascent period, g-loads and vibrations had no depressing effects on me and I could fruitfully work in accordance with a predetermined programme. The spaceship put in orbit and the carrier rocket separated, weightlessness set in. At first the sensation was to some extent unusual, although I had experienced weightlessness of short duration before. But soon I adapted myself ..... and could continue fulfilling my programme”. He “ate and drank and maintained continuous communication with the Earth on different channels by telephone and telegraph”. He soon descends and lands uneventfully.

The inside view of the cosmonaut's compartment of the spaceship-sputnik "Vostok" : 1.- pilot's desk; 2.- instrument panel with the globe; 3.- television camera; 4.- porthole with an optical orientation system; 5.- control handle of the spaceship orientation During the flight he also observes the Earth and “could clearly distinguish big mountain ranges, big rivers, large forests, coastlines and islands..... The sky was jet black .....The Earth had a very pretty and distinct blue halo [which] had a smooth transition from pale blue to blue, dark blue, violet and absolutely black .... a magnificent picture”. He concludes, “Thanks to a thorough training I experienced no discomfort from the effects of the space-flight factors. At present I feel fine. April 15, 1961.” Gagarin directly after the landing is reporting by telephone to Nikita Khrushchev of the successful fulfilment of the first manned flight into space Alan Shepard: first American to travel into space Vehicle commander Alan ShepardGagarin's achievement launched a new era in the history of mankind. Further manned space flights occurred in quick succession.

On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard piloted the Freedom 7 spacecraft and became the second person, and the first American, to travel into space. He was launched by a Redstone rocket, and unlike Gagarin's 108 minute orbital flight, Shepard stayed on a ballistic trajectory suborbital flight - a flight which carried him to an altitude of 187 km and to a landing point 486 km downrange. (see Alan Shepard Records file ) Mercury-Redstone on the pad Beginning of the Apollo program Following this success, President John F. Kennedy announced on May 25, 1961, the dramatic and ambitious goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. This was the beginning of the Apollo program. Ten years later, Shepard commanded the Apollo 14 mission, and was the fifth person to walk on the Moon. Gus Grissom: second American spaceflight Shortly afterwards on July 21, 1961, Gus Grissom piloted Liberty Bell 7 on the second American (suborbital) spaceflight. This was the second of seven manned flights in Project Mercury.

German Titov: Vostok 2 Pilot-cosmonaut German Titov on the way to the cosmodrome Meanwhile the Soviet manned space programme continued and on August 6, 1961, German Titov completed over 17 orbits in Vostok 2, before returning to Earth safely at the beginning of the 18th orbit. The flight was an almost complete success, marred only by a heater that had inadvertently been turned off prior to liftoff, allowing the temperature inside the capsule to drop to 10°C, a bout of space sickness, and a troublesome re-entry when the reentry module failed to separate cleanly from its service module. Once again the USSR Tchkalov Central Aero Club submitted the Records File to the FAI in support of World Record claims for Earth orbit flight duration (25h 18m) and distance flown (703150km).

(see German Titov Records file ) Pilot-cosmonaut Titov before entering the spaceship Vostok 2 John Glenn: first American to orbit the Earth The first American to orbit the Earth was John Glenn who made a total of 3 orbits in Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. Interestingly, he became the oldest person to fly in space, and the only one to fly in both the Mercury and Space Shuttle programs, when at age 77, he flew on Space Shuttle Discovery (STS-95) on October 29, 1998. Articles In This Category Alan Shepard: First American in Space Alan Shepard: First American in Space By Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com Contributor | May 5, 2014 10:00am ET MORE Alan Shepard became the first American in space when the Freedom 7 spacecraft blasted off from Florida on May 5, 1961. Ten years later, Shepard would leave Earth's atmosphere again to become the fifth man to walk on the moon — and the first one to play golf there. Born Nov.

18, 1923, to Renza Emerson and Alan Shepard, Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr . grew up in rural New Hampshire. After graduating from high school, he attended the U.S. Naval Academy, graduating the day after D-Day. An ensign, Shepard spent the last year of World War II on a destroyer in the Pacific. NASA astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space on May 5, 1961 aboard his Mercury spacecraft Freedom 7. Credit: NASA. Over the next 15 years, Shepard served in the Navy in various capacities. He received a civilian pilot's license while in naval flight training, and spent several tours on aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean. He attended the U.S. Navy Test Pilot School in 1950, and then went on to participate in a number of developmental tests for various crafts, as well as trials of the first angled carrier deck. He then became an instructor in the Test Pilot School. He logged more than 8,000 hours of flight time over the course of his career. [ Photos: Freedom 7, America's 1st Human Spaceflight ] Shepard attended the Naval War College in Rhode Island.

Following his 1957 graduation, he was assigned as an aircraft readiness officer on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet. Upon his return home at the close of World War II, Shepard married Louise Brewer, whom he had met while attending the Naval Academy. The couple had two daughters. The right stuff In 1959, 110 test pilots were invited to volunteer for the space flight program headed by the new National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Although Shepard was on the list, a snafu kept him from receiving his invitation. Regardless, he was selected as one of the first seven astronauts for the organization. Known as the Mercury 7, the group included John Glenn , Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Donald "Deke" Slayton, Malcolm "Scott" Carpenter, Walter "Wally" Schirra, and Gordon Cooper. From this prestigious group of highly trained fliers, Shepard was selected to man the first space flight , with Glenn acting as his backup. Astronaut Alan B. Shepard is rescued by a U.S.

Marine helicopter at the end of his sub-orbital Mercury-Redstone 3 (MR-3) flight May 5, 1961. Credit: NASA The stakes were raised in the space race on April 15, 1961, when the Soviet Union launched cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space and he became the first person to orbit the Earth. Gagarin beat the Americans by less than a month. Shepard's launch was initially scheduled for May 2, but was rescheduled twice because of weather conditions. On May 5, Freedom 7 lifted off, carrying Shepard to an altitude of 116 miles for a 15-minute flight. Because of the placement of the porthole windows, the first American in space was unable to catch a glimpse of the stars, and he was strapped in too tight to experience weightlessness. Also, a filter left on the periscope window rendered the Earth below in black and white. Although the Soviets had reached the historic milestone first, Shepard's suborbital flight made a significant worldwide impact because its launch, travel and splashdown were watched on live television by millions of people.

By contrast, the details of Gagarin's landing were kept confidential for more than a decade. For his daring achievement, President John F. Kennedy awarded Shepard the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. [ Infographic: America's First Spaceship: Project Mercury ] Shepard worked on the ground for subsequent flights in the Mercury program and was slated to pilot the Mercury 10 mission. However, after successfully putting an astronaut in orbit for a full day with Mercury 9, NASA decided to close the first manned space program and move on with Gemini, the next step on the journey toward the moon . NASA selected Shepard to be part of the first manned Gemini mission. However, he woke one morning dizzy and nauseated, and found himself falling constantly. He was subsequently diagnosed with Meniere's syndrome. Fluid in his inner ear had built up, increasing the sensitivity of the semicircular canals and motion detectors. Shepard was grounded in 1963, forbidden from solo flights in jet planes — or traveling in space. Shepard switched gears, taking over as the Chief of the Astronaut Office for NASA. He oversaw the activities and schedules of the astronauts and their training and assisted with mission planning.

In 1969, he underwent an operation that corrected the problem, allowing him to regain full flight status. Shepard, Stuart Roosa and Ed Mitchell were initially supposed to fly on Apollo 13 , but they were pushed back a mission to give everyone extra training, especially Shepard. Shepard was subsequently named commander for the Apollo 14 mission to the moon.

Question: Who in 1961 made the first space flight?
Answer: Yuri Gagarin