Shepard, a couple of weeks before his first spaceflight in May 1961. NASA It was Wernher von Braun who kept Alan Shepard from becoming the first man in space. In March 1961, with the new Mercury ...

The TV host icon compared the Blue Origin flight to a pioneering 1961 space mission, in which U.S. Navy test pilot Alan Shepard became the first American and the second man in space. Critics found ...

It was May 5, 1961, and Commander Alan Shepard had been ... suggesting that since Shepard had spent “only one minute in space,” he should be labeled a “cloudnaut” rather than an astronaut.