Behind the Scenes of the First Crewed American Spaceflight
On this day in 1961, Alan B. Shepard Jr. muttered to himself, “Don’t fuck up, Shepard…”, huddled into the Freedom 7 Mercury capsule, and lifted off to become the first American to reach space. These are the photographs from the historic suborbital flight. Shepard reported observing the outlines of the west coast of Florida, the…
