We Could Lose Him
We took every precaution. Stretched technology to unimagined limits. Installed back-up systems for everything. And tested and tested it over and over again. But nothing we could do would give us 100% guarantee that we would not loose Commander Alan Shepard on May 5,1961 when he said, "C'mon...let's light this candle," and became our First American in Space.
Strapped into the drivr's seat of his tiny Mercury Capsule, Freedom 7, he rode his Redstone rocket 115 miles up and landed successfully 302 miles down range. Secretly, a thousand fingers uncrossed and relaxed.
ROCKET DATA: Mercury Redstone
Height: 25.3 meters )83 feet)
Diameter: 1.8 meters (70 inches)
Fuel: Liquid Oxygen (LOX) and Alcohol-Water
Lift-off thrust: 78,000 pounds
From: Wikipedia
Alan Shepard
Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) (Rear Admiral, United States Navy, Ret.) was the second person and the first American in space. He later commanded the Apollo 14 mission, and was the fifth person to walk on the moon.
Project Mercury
In 1959, Shepard was one of 110 military test pilots invited by the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration to volunteer for the first manned space flight program. Following a gruelling series of physical and psychological tests, NASA selected Shepard to be one of the original group of seven Mercury astronauts.
In January, 1961 Shepard was chosen for the first American manned mission into space. Although the flight was originally scheduled to take place in October 1960, delays caused by unplanned preparatory work meant that this was postponed several times, initially to March 6, 1961 and finally to May 5, 1961. On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first person to orbit the Earth.
Freedom 7
Alan Shepard in Freedom 7 capsule before launch.On May 5, 1961, Shepard piloted the Freedom 7 mission 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 116 statute miles and to a landing point 302 statute miles down the Atlantic Missile Range. Unlike Gagarin, whose flight was strictly automatic, Shepard had some control of Freedom 7, spacecraft attitude in particular. The launch, return from space and subsequent collection by helicopter were seen live on television by millions.
On his successful return to Earth, Shepard was celebrated as a national hero, honored with parades in Washington, New York and Los Angeles and meeting President John F. Kennedy.