50th anniversary of Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 flight. May 5, 2011 — -- Fifty years ago today, astronaut Alan Shepard squeezed into a tiny Mercury capsule and challenged the heavens. He called his ...

On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American to travel to space. Born in 1923, Shepard was a decorated pilot with the United States Navy before he was recruited to become one of the Mercury ...

Those were the words Alan Shepard used 60 years ago Wednesday to note his cockpit timepiece had begun running. This meant his Redstone rocket booster had left the ground sending him and his one-man ...

Inevitably, there are times in a nation's history when its hopes, fears and confidence in its own destiny appear to hinge on the fate of a single person. One of these pivotal moments occurred on the ...

Blue Origin's all-female 11-minute flight on April 14 reminds us that there's a long line of women who have been making history in space.