Image credit: NASA/MSFC. REF: LOD 61C-884 (MIX FILE). Click to big up.
54 years ago today: May 5, 1961 – CDR (later RADM) Alan Bartlett “Al” Shepard, Jr. became the second person and the first American in space on this date, lifting off from Cape Canaveral during the Freedom 7 mission aboard a Mercury Redstone rocket.
Shortly before the launch, Shepard said to himself: “Don’t fuck up, Shepard…”
The rocket was based on the earlier Redstone rocket developed by German rocket expert Wernher von Braun’s team before they transferred from the Army to NASA in 1960. Work continued on the rocket and the first two Mercury-Redstones were assembled onsite at the Marshall Center with many of the components fabricated at Marshall. The Chrysler Corporation assembled an additional six vehicles.
The suborbital flight lasted only 15 minutes and traveled a downrange distance of 263.1 nautical miles (303 statute). Shepard splashed down safely into the Atlantic near the Bahamas and was airlifted to an awaiting aircraft carrier, USS Lake Champlain (CV-39), where a a Sikorsky HUS-1 Seahorse (after 1962 UH-34E) of Marine squadron HMM-262 recovered the Naval aviator and astronaut–arriving overhead within two minutes after splashdown.
Image credit: US Navy. Click to big up
Sadly, “The Champ” was sold for scrapping April 1972, and RADM Shepard passed on July 21, 1998– thankfully before he saw the end of manned U.S. spaceflight.
However HMM-262, now re designated VMM-262 due to their use of MV-22 tilt-rotor Ospreys, is hard at work, deploying to Nepal, where they will be plucking up earthquake survivors and delivering supplies to isolated areas.
Bravo Zulu both then and now.
