On May 5, 1961, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. 
was launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule,
becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space.

Shepard and Freedom 7 on the deck of the aircraft carrier
USS Lake Champlain.

Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (1923 – 1998)

       
CARLATA BRADLEY

From Cape Canaveral, Florida, John Herschel Glenn Jr. was
successfully launched into space aboard the Friendship 7
spacecraft on the first orbital flight by an American astronaut.

Glenn, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, was
among the seven men chosen by the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration in 1959 to become America’s 
first astronauts.

President John F. Kennedy on the phone.

John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016)

U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford became
the first African American to travel into space when the
space shuttle Challenger lifted off on its third mission. It
was the first night launch of a space shuttle, and many
people stayed up late to watch the spacecraft roar up
from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 2:32 a.m.

The Challenger spent six days in space, during which time
Bluford and his four fellow crew members launched a
communications satellite for the government of India,
made contact with an errant communications satellite,
conducted scientific experiments, and tested the shuttle’s
robotic arm.

Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. will be 82 years old on
November 22.

At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astronaut Neil Armstrong, 240,000
miles from Earth, speaks these words to more than a billion
people listening at home: “That’s one small step for a man, one
giant leap for mankind.” Stepping off the lunar module Eagle,
Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of
the moon.

Sally Kristen Ride (May 26, 1951 – July 23, 2012)

On June 18, 1983,  the space shuttle Challenger was launched
into space on its second mission. On board the shuttle is Dr. 
Sally K. Ride, who as a mission specialist, became the first
American woman to travel into space. 

Ride, who had earlier pursued a professional tennis career,
answered a newspaper ad in 1977 from NASA calling for
young tech-savvy scientists who could work as mission
specialists. She died of pancreatic cancer at age 61.

              
Presidential Medal of Freedom
         (2013, posthumous)