ARLA/CLUSTER: 50º Aniversario do 1º Americano no Espaço

[João Gonçalves Costa]

50th anniversary of 1st American in space

Today, May 5, is the 50th anniversary of Alan Shepard's historic journey into space in Freedom 7.

His space flight was the first to meet the then FAI requirements to qualify as a world record.

Alan Shepard's flight clocked up a number of firsts.

He was the first person to reach space and land in the same vehicle that he took-off in. Yuri Gagarin did not land in his capsule, instead he jumped out and landed by parachute. The Soviets kept details of his landing secret for many years because under the then FAI regulations, the flight would only qualify as a world record if the pilot stayed inside the capsule all the way to touchdown.

Alan Shepard was also the first to have some control of the spacecraft, Yuri Gagarin's flight was on auto-pilot. The launch and recovery by helicopter were televised live, another first.

Later in 1971, Alan Shepard commanded Apollo 14 and famously played golf on the Moon with a six iron, the second of his shots going as he said for "miles and miles and miles".

On the AMSAT bulletin board John Papay K8YSE wrote about Alan Shepard's historic space flight.
You can read his post at: http://www.amsat.org/amsat/archive/amsat-bb/48hour/msg86175.html

It wasn't until May 18, 1991, 30 years after Alan Shepard's historic flight, that an astronaut from the United Kingdom, Helen Sharman GB1MIR, travelled into space on her flight to the MIR space station.

Watch this NASA video - Golf on the Moon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZLl3XwlAIE
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