Alan B. Shepard, the first American in space

American Astronaut Alan B. Shepard, one of the original seven astronauts for Mercury Project selected by NASA photographed on April 27, 1959. The “Freedom 7” spacecraft boosted by Mercury-Redstone rocket for the MR-3 mission made the first manned suborbital flight and Astronaut Shepard became the first American in space.

This photo shows Shepard and Freedom 7 after recovery. A recovery helicopter that had been watching Freedom 7 lifted Shepard into the helicopter (HMM-262 Seabat), after he splashed down and came out. Both the Freedom 7 and the astronaut were then flown to the deck of the nearby recovery carrier, the USS Lake Champlain. Freedom 7, now on display in the lobby of the Armel-Leftwich Visitor Center, at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, was placed there after Shepard's death in 1998.