5 May

1961: On 5 May 1961, America's first astronaut in space, Alan B. Shepard Jr., made a 15-minute sub-orbital flight that reached an altitude of just under 200 kilometres. During the flight, Shepard experienced about five minutes of 'weightlessness'.

He was launched in the Freedom 7 Mercury capsule from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, by a Redstone 3 rocket. As he re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, the experienced test pilot was subjected to 11 times the force of gravity.

Although Shepard became the first American in space, the world's first human in space was Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut, launched into orbit less than one month earlier in Vostok 1, on 12 April 1961. Later, John Glenn would go on to become the first US astronaut in orbit.