05 May 08

On May 5, 1961, astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. became America's first space traveler as he made a 15-minute suborbital flight in a capsule launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The capsule was named Freedom 7, in honor of the seven astronauts selected for the Mercury space project. Read more about the primitive beginnings of the U. S. space program in the New York Times report.