Sixty years ago, on May 5, 1961, a Redstone rocket hurled Alan Shepard’s Mercury capsule, Freedom 7, 116 miles (187 km) high and 302 miles (486 km) downrange from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Freedom 7 parachuted into the Atlantic just 15 minutes and 22 seconds later, after attaining a maximum velocity of 5,180 mph (8,336 km/h). Shepard, a Navy test pilot and NASA astronaut, became the first American to fly in space. Shepard’s flight was a triumph, not least because it had been conducted live on national television and in front of the world press. It was a notable contrast to the secretive ways of the Communist-led Soviet Union. But 25 days earlier on April 12, 1961, Soviet Air Force pilot Yuri Gagarin had made a single orbit of the Earth, becoming the first human to travel beyond the atmosphere. It was just the latest Soviet space first, going back to Sputnik, the first artificial Earth satellite, in October 1957. Gagarin’s flight was yet another stunning propaganda success in the Cold War Space Race.