May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard, The NASA astronaut was the first American to go into space. He rocketed from Cape Canaveral Mercury-Redstone In a space capsule called Freedom-7 was thrown
This is the first manned flight of the project Mercury NASA had planned to put astronauts into orbit.
Project Mercury
NASA planned to begin manned orbital flights in 1961. The first NASA astronauts were military test pilots before being selected for this job, and they had all the necessary equipment to carry out such high-risk missions.
NASA hired seven astronauts as the first group, among these seven astronauts, Alan Shepard was the first American to make a suborbital flight in 1961.
Alan Shepard’s Flight
Shepard only three weeks after the Soviet Union launched the first person into Earth orbit ie Yuri Gagarin, launched into space. Shepard’s flight was suborbital and he experienced weightlessness.
The flight lasted only fifteen minutes, but it raised the morale of the Americans and made him a hero. During the flight, Shepard tested the capsule’s attitude control system and retraction rockets, which would be used to assist in the landing of future orbital missions.
He reached an altitude of 116 miles before returning to Earth. Space capsule Freedom-7 crashed in the Atlantic Ocean, near the Bahamas.
The life of the first American astronaut after the flight
In 1968, Sheppard underwent surgery for ear problems. After his recovery, he was reinstated to flight status and began training for a future Apollo mission.
February 1971 and ten years after America’s first manned flight, Alan Shepard, as an astronaut Apollo-14 flew He was also the first person to hit a golf ball on the moon.
Alan Shepard was diagnosed with leukemia in 1996. Despite the treatment of the disease, he died in 1998 due to the complications of his disease.
