gregorygalloway:3 weeks after Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly to space,
gregorygalloway:3 weeks after Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly to space, on 5 May 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American to get there.While Gagarin remained in flight for 108 minutes, Shepard piloted Freedom 7 for 15 minutes, reaching an altitude of about 115 miles.After a more than 2-hour launch delay (during which Shepard famously urinated in his spacesuit, since no one had planned for the need for a flight that was going to last 15 minutes), Shepard left the ground at 9:34 am (est), an event that was watched on live TV by more than 45 million people. -- source link