Launch from Cape Canaveral of Freedom 7, with Alan Shepard, first American in space, May 5, 1961

[mahatmakanejeeves]

In White House Rose Garden, three days after Alan Shepard’s flight of today 1961 as first American in space, JFK accidentally drops Shepard's medal, picks it up and then quips that the medal “has gone from the ground up—here”:

Launch from Cape Canaveral of Freedom 7, with Alan Shepard, first American in space, today 1961. Compared to rocket that took Apollo astronauts into space to land on moon, Shepard’s looks almost like a toy.

Link to tweet

[malthaussen]

1. There is in-capsule video of Shepard's trip:

&t=2s

I was just a kid, and I wanted to be an astronaut because of this.

-- Mal

[Tommy Carcetti]

2. ...........

[Hoyt]

3. Remember it well watching in the lobby of the Sherwood-Bates Elementary, Raleigh NC.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. We watched it from the auditorium. That's where the television set was. NT

[Liberal In Texas]

5. Still have some of the stamps issued back then

as a kid I kind of collected them.