Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. On May 5, 1961, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American to go to space. He launched from Cape Canaveral on a Mercury ...

As NASA fought to catch up to the Soviet Union in the space race, they selected a Navy veteran as the first astronaut. But ...

Those were the words Alan Shepard used 60 years ago Wednesday to note his cockpit timepiece had begun running. This meant his Redstone rocket booster had left the ground sending him and his one-man ...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Sixty years after Alan Shepard became the first American in space, everyday people are on the verge of following in his cosmic footsteps. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company is ...

In the late 1950s, the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in a Space Race. The Soviets had already taken an early lead by launching the first satellite, Sputnik, in 1957. Just weeks before ...

On the morning of May 5, 1961, the Mercury-Redstone 3 launch vehicle lifted into the sky from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. Over the next 15 minutes, Shepard ascended ...

Shortly after 9 AM on May 5, 1961, Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. became the second person—and the first American—in space, rocketing to a height of 116.5 miles inside his Mercury capsule. Unlike Soviet ...

The legacy of Apollo 11 and Mercury-Redstone 3 is no longer confined to dusty archives or grainy television broadcasts; in 2026, these pivotal moments are being reimagined through cutting-edge ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. On May 5, 1961, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American to go to space. [‘On This Day in Space’ Video Series on ...

FILE - In this May 5, 1961 file photo, astronaut Alan Shepard sits in his capsule at Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard a Mercury-Redstone rocket. Freedom 7 was the first American manned suborbital space ...