--- title: Alan Shepard: Classic Photos of the First American in Space description: On the anniversary of Alan Shepard's historic 'Freedom 7' flight in 1961, LIFE.com features photos from that amazing, inspiring era. canonical: https://time.com/3879741/alan-shepard-classic-photos-of-the-first-american-in-space/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-04T16:57:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:03:43.389Z og:title: Alan Shepard: Classic Photos of the First American in Space og:description: On the anniversary of Alan Shepard's historic 'Freedom 7' flight in 1961, LIFE.com features photos from that amazing, inspiring era. og:url: https://time.com/3879741/alan-shepard-classic-photos-of-the-first-american-in-space/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd4262a7c6d891ccb/6987f13155a859d5afa8a3ec/50551689.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Alan Shepard, Project Mercury og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Alan Shepard: Classic Photos of the First American in Space twitter:description: On the anniversary of Alan Shepard's historic 'Freedom 7' flight in 1961, LIFE.com features photos from that amazing, inspiring era. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd4262a7c6d891ccb/6987f13155a859d5afa8a3ec/50551689.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Alan Shepard: Classic Photos of the First American in Space by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove May 4, 2014 4:57 PM UTC  In an image that captures the at-once easy and intense bond among the Mercury 7, Shepard laughs with fellow astronauts Gus Grissom (right) and Deke Slayton upon his arrival at Grand Bahama Island, shortly after his successful flight and splashdown, May 1961. In an image that captures the at-once easy and intense bond among the Mercury 7, Shepard laughs with fellow astronauts Gus Grissom (right) and Deke Slayton upon his arrival at Grand Bahama Island, shortly after his successful flight and splashdown, May 1961.Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove May 4, 2014 4:57 PM UTC When Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space in April 1961, a stunned America had two questions: _How could this happen?_ and _When is one of our guys going up there? W_eeks later, on May 5, 1961, the second question was emphatically answered when 37-year-old [Alan Shepard](http://www.biography.com/people/alan-shepard-37917#awesm=~oD7JURJlTJWSFj) blasted off from Cape Canaveral on his own historic flight — a feat that made the New Hampshire native the first American in space and marked a major United States triumph in the Space Race. Here, on the anniversary of Shepard’s historic flight, LIFE.com presents pictures, the vast majority of them by LIFE’s Ralph Morse (dubbed “the 8th Mercury astronaut” by [John Glenn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John%5FGlenn)), along with Morse’s own memories of that amazing era, and those magnificent young men in their flying machines. Of the three astronauts chosen as candidates for America’s first manned space flight, only one could or would ultimately star in what LIFE magazine, in March 1961, called the “violent, historic event. . . . Some time this spring, either John Glenn or Virgil Grissom or Alan Shepard will crawl into a small capsule on top of a Redstone rocket and wait for the most awesome journey that man has ever taken.” It's called Sleepwalker and oh hey look, it's pretty creepy. Shepard was a Navy test pilot who had logged more than 8,000 hours flying before joining the space program. He was also, LIFE assured its readers, “a cool customer. . . . The tallest (5′ 11″) of the astronauts, Shepard holds his wiry frame with a loose grace and dresses, even in sports clothes, with a crisp immaculateness that reflects his Naval Academy training.” For his part, Ralph Morse recalls that Shepard “was much slower at making friendships than Glenn or Carpenter or the others. But when Alan became your friend, he was a great friend. He was very, very smart, and personable when you got to know him. And like all of those guys, he was solid as hell. A perfect choice, really, for the first flight.” After NASA announced that he was the one tapped for the first space flight, Shepard found himself in the heart of an unprecedented media storm. (NASA had delayed the announcement of who would wear the uneasy mantle of “the first American in space” for so long for that very reason — to try and keep the spotlight off of one astronaut for as long as possible.) “These guys couldn’t go anywhere without being accosted,” Morse says. “They all had their own bungalows at the Cape \[Canaveral\], but there was no real privacy, especially as the launch date approached and people were getting worked up about the flight. Autograph seekers, reporters wanting quotes, photographers wanting pictures — it was endless. I don’t know how Shepard and the rest handled it as well as they did. They were unflappable.” For his own part, of all the talents he feels are necessary in order to enjoy a long, fruitful career as a photojournalist, Ralph Morse comes back again and again to two in particular: the ability to be prepared, and the ability to make and keep friendships. As a perfect illustration of this credo, he told LIFE.com a story about making some of the most famous pictures ever to emerge from the Project Mercury era (slides 7, 8 and 9 in the gallery). “Early on, in 1959,,” Morse said, “I wanted a picture of the seven guys in their space suits. NASA said they wouldn’t allow it. Besides, they said, the seven would never wear the suits at the same time. Now, each of these suits cost a hundred grand — _huge_ money back then — and, you know, ladies who read magazines want to see what a hundred thousand dollar dress looks like. But NASA always said no. Finally, one afternoon, Shorty Powers — a public affairs guy for NASA and, as far as I could tell, a frustrated astronaut — Shorty tells me, ‘Ralph, we decided to let you do that picture. Tonight. But _you_ gotta get the guys together — and _you_ gotta get the suits on them.’ “So here it is,” Morse continued, “mid-afternoon, and I only have a few hours to get all seven of these guys together, suit them up, and make the picture. But I’m going to make this picture happen because these guys are my friends. The suit men, the technicians who actually help put the astronauts into the suits, they’re my friends, too. Five of the astronauts are with me in Langley \[Virginia\], and they’re up for it. But Glenn and Grissom aren’t there. Glenn is home in Arlington, so I call him up. ‘John, I need you for a picture. Can you come down tonight?’ He says, ‘Of course.’ But Gus is in St. Louis. I call him up. ‘Gus, I need you.’ He says he can’t make it, he has plans that night, impossible. “Now I really get to work on Grissom,” Morse says, laughing at the memory. “‘Gus, you’re an astronaut!” I yell at him. “Charter a plane, fly in. I take the picture, you fly back. We’ll charge it to LIFE.’ And that’s what he did. Gus flies in from St. Louis, all seven of these guys get in the suits — which took about an hour, because the things were brand new. Grissom flies back to St. Louis a few hours later, and I got my pictures. _That’s_ friendship.” On Shepard’s launch day in May ’61, after he was secure in the capsule, the flight was delayed for four hours, partly due to weather — clouds would obscure filming of the launch — and because last-minute radio-system repairs were required. Cramped, uncomfortable (at one point, unable to exit the capsule, he urinated in his flight suit) and increasingly anxious to get underway, Shepard finally uttered one of the most famous communications in NASA history. Addressing the engineers and technicians at launch control, he asked, “Why don’t you fix your little problem and light this candle?” While his flight proved a huge boost for NASA, Shepard did not, in fact, orbit the Earth. His was a “sub-orbital” trajectory, meaning he and his _Freedom 7_ craft reached a maximum altitude of around 115 miles — but did not come close to a true circling of the globe. A few weeks later, [President Kennedy famously declared](http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/features/jfk%5Fspeech%5Ftext.html): “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space. . . . But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon — if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation.” [\[Read Jeffrey Kluger’s tribute to Neil Armstrong.\]](http://science.time.com/2012/08/25/remembering-neil-armstrong-a-man-of-profound-skill-and-preternatural-calm/) Shepard was hardly one to rest on his laurels, and his NASA career included many more triumphs after his _Freedom 7_ flight. In 1971, as commander on Apollo 14, he became one of the handful of humans to walk on the moon — and (thus far) the only person in history to smuggle a golf club head aboard a space craft, attach it to a lunar-sample scoop handle and tee off on the lunar surface. One of his drives, he later joked, traveled for “miles and miles and miles.” Alan Shepard, who retired as a U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, died in 1998\. He was 74. _— Ben Cosgrove is the Editor of LIFE.com_  Not published in LIFE. Alan Shepard, 1959. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  (L-R) Six of the original seven Project Mercury astronauts: Gordon Cooper, Deke Slayton, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Scott Carpenter and Wally Schirra, press conference, 1961. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  A Floridian wishes the Mercury astronauts Godspeed, 1960. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Alan Shepard on Grand Bahama Island, 1961. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Alan Shepard standing next to a missile launch platform, 1959. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Project Mercury astronauts, 1961. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Project Mercury astronauts model their new space suits, 1959. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Project Mercury astronauts model their new space suits, 1959. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Project Mercury astronauts model their new space suits, 1959. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  John Glenn at Mission Control prior to Alan Shepard's May 1961 flight. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Alan Shepard and family, 1960. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Mission Control, May 1961. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. A party for astronauts and other Project Mercury personnel, Florida, 1961. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Alan Shepard, 1961. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Alan Shepard prior to historic flight, May 1961. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Donald "Deke" Slayton at time of Alan Shepard's historic flight, May 1961. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  The Redstone rocket on which Alan Shepard flew into space. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Technicians on the launch pad prior to Alan Shepard's May 5, 1961, flight. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  John Glenn checks capsule at time of Alan Shepard's May 1961flight. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. The scene inside the "block house" at launch control, May 5, 1961. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  A crowd watches Alan Shepard's May 5, 1961, launch. Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Relief and joy reflected in equal measure on her face, Louise Shepard takes one of the countless calls she received in the moments after her husband Alan's safe splashdown, May 1961. Leonard McCombe—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  In an image that captures the at-once easy and intense bond among the Mercury 7, Shepard laughs with fellow astronauts Gus Grissom (right) and Deke Slayton upon his arrival at Grand Bahama Island, shortly after his successful flight and splashdown, May 1961. Paul Schutzer—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  President John Kennedy pins NASA's Distinguished Service Medal on Alan Shepard's chest, May 8, 1961. Joseph Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Caroline Kennedy watches as her dad pins a medal on Alan Shepard at the White House, May 1961. Joseph Scherschel—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Project Mercury astronauts, at rest, 1961. 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