Alan Shepard missed being the first man in space by this much. His Freedom 7 capsule was being readied at the same time as Gagarin’s Vostok but was delayed from March to May, and in the meantime Gagarin launched. Gagarin was undaunted by the Soviet accomplishment. He had come too far to turn back. He joined the Navy in 1944, serving aboard a destroyer, and completed flight school training three years later. A long career as a test pilot prepared him for the Project Mercury human spaceflight mission. Shepard, along with  John Glenn, Jr., and Virgil Ivan “Gus” Grissom were chosen. Shepard was given the first flight.

On this day, May 5, in 1961, Shepard’s Freedom 7 took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, reaching a top speed of 5,100 miles per hour, about eight times the speed of sound. After the parachutes deployed, just under half an hour later the Freedom 7 splashed down back to earth.

Shepard was supposed to accompany John Glenn on the Apollo mission to the moon as well, but developed an inner-ear infection that kept him out of the crew (and kept him out of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission as well). Shepard did make a comeback as the commander of the Apollo 14 lunar lander, where he added to his list of accomplishment the playing of golf on the lunar surface.