World Explorers: Alan Shepard

5 minutes 21 seconds

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On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard made a 15-minute suborbital flight in the Freedom 7 spacecraft, which reached an altitude of 115 miles. The flight came 23 days after Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin became the first human to travel in space, but Shepard’s flight energized U.S. space efforts and made him a national hero. Part of the "World Explorers" series.