60th anniversary of first American in space

Itssoeasy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xd9kg-fJ9g

Today marks sixty years since NASA launched an Astronaut into space(it was a suborbital flight but it still counts) when Alan Shepard aboard mercury capsule named freedom 7(Mercury-redstone 3) became the first American in space on a flight that lasted 15 minutes. It was the first of six mercury flights to test mans ability to survive space flight( Deke slayton never flew his mercury mission but did fly in space once). It was followed by another sub orbital flight by gus Grissom who’s capsule Liberty bell 7 sunk. The first American to orbit earth was John Glenn who gets more notoriety than Alan Shepard but only one was first.

It had been proceeded by the Russians getting to space first nearly a month prior(which I did miss commemorating) by Yuri Gagarin in Vostok 1 who did a single orbit.

It’s a hugely important moment in the history of NASA and American space flight in general because it’s the start for everything that came after it with Gemini, Apollo, skylab, the shuttle, and now space X. It all started on this day sixty years ago.

Anyway just said I’d make the day due to its huge importance.

Capt'n Midnight

Itssoeasy wrote: »

Today marks sixty years since NASA launched an Astronaut into space(it was a suborbital flight but it still counts)

Nope.

Only got to Edge Of Space.

We'll have to wait until February



Getting above the Kármán line at 100Km doesn't count unless you are going fast enough to stay up there. It's the point at which the air is so thin that an aircraft would have to go so fast that it would reach orbital velocity.

The X-15 wasn't a spaceplane. It could have been with something like a Delta booster but Apollo took all the money. The pilots didn't become astronauts by flying the X-15. Neil used a different means to get to the moon.

Suborbital is relatively easy
Both the UK and Russia had plans to do it back in the 1940's using a modified V2 , which is ironic since
Alan Shepard of the United States became the first man to make a suborbital trip into space aboard an evolved V-2, the Redstone, on May 5, 1961