Fifty years of the first manned space flight at NASA

50 years ago today, on May 5, 1961 - Alan Shepard became the first American in space aboard the Freedom 7, the first man into space led by the famous and still-young American space agency, NASA.

After the humiliation that accounted for NASA that the Russian space agency has been able to send before them a man into space , one could say who started the fiercest of the race spacing l. But incredibly, the NASA's Mercury program had not sent any man into space despite having started from 1959, if we add the-far-superior Soviet sure their minds were not the best.

The NASA program was born with Mercury and considered over 110 candidates from the U.S. Navy, all experienced pilots and gathered everything you need to belong to the space program. Among them Alan Shepard was chosen to take part in the first manned space flight at NASA, which was originally scheduled for October 1960 but had to be postponed, giving opportunity for the Soviet program was the one who gave the first step in space.

Finally, in May 1961, Freedom 7 off. The flight may not seem surprising to what has been achieved today, only 120 miles are elevated the ship before returning to Earth, but that Shepard became the first man to land your spaceship, as Gagarin was expelled from his own and landed with a parachute.

Perhaps many do not remember the name of Alan Shepard, has been overshadowed by other names such as John Glenn, on board the Friendship 7 was able to make the first manned orbital flight of the NASA-or that of Neil Armstrong , the first man the Moon, "but this does not downplay the achievement of Shepard and the entire team behind this project.

In fact, after Shepard would be taken into account for the missions Apollo , was part of the Apollo 14 and was able to put your foot on the moon, where images are sent where he could be seen playing golf in full color on the lunar surface .

The history of space travel is still young and surprising science forced to advance by leaps and bounds and technological feats achieved with the resources they had at hand, there is no doubt that those involved in the space race, on any side - are somehow heroes of science and technology.

I invite you all to take a tour of the gallery with rare photographs to Life magazine presented to commemorate the event and where we took the photograph illustrating the article. Here, I also leave a video of the 15-minute suborbital flight lasted Shepard and we also see different angles, all pictures taken from recordings made ​​by the same NASA:

Fifty years of the first manned space flight at NASA written on ALT1040 on 5 May, 2011 zapata131
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