A missed anniversary: Freedom 7

At APOD today we find a pic of the Mercury-Redstone 3 lift-off from Cape Canaveral of Alan Shepard in Freedom 7.  5 May 1961… 60 years ago.

60 years.

Alan Shepard would later command Apollo 14 and walk on your planet’s Moon.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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9 Comments

  1. InFormationDiakonia says:

    Thanks for posting this Father Z. I remembered this historic flight on the date in question and thought to myself how far we’ve come in 60 years of spaceflight. There was so much excitement surrounding the space program then and, with SpaceX, Perseverance, and the Space Force, there seems to be a renewed appreciation for the ingenuity and God-given talents of engineers, bravery of astronauts, and how the High Frontier affects us all. Space is “cool” again.

  2. AA Cunningham says:

    The Mystery Behind Alan Shepard’s ‘Moon Shot’ Revealed

    [That was interesting. It reminded me of THIS.]

  3. mo7 says:

    I was born 5 days later. 60 years – yikes!

  4. Ave Maria says:

    I just watched the movie “Hidden Figures” and recommend it! It is about the “colored” genius ladies who worked on the space program in the early 60s.

  5. GregB says:

    On Wednesday May 5 SpaceX Starship prototype SN15 had the first fully successful high altitude test flight of the Starship test program.
    *
    Speaking of “Hidden Figures.” The recent Cygnus cargo spacecraft, NG-15, was named SS Katherine Johnson in her honor.

  6. hwriggles4 says:

    Forty years ago last month (April 12) was the first flight of the Space Shuttle. Remember it well – I got the Sunday paper out on my route a little later than normal, and woke up my dad yelling 10..9..8…7…6..5..(dad makes it to the tv)…2…1.. liftoff.

    I waited for the SRBs to drop before I rolled the first paper.

  7. JonPatrick says:

    In 1969 I had the privilege as part of an AFROTC field trip to Cape Canaveral to tour the NASA facilities including the VAB where Apollo 11 was being assembled for the first moon landing. We also went out to the Gemini and Mercury launch facilities rapidly rusting away in the Florida salt air. It was shocking to see how primitive the Mercury facilities were and to think what guts people like Sheppard and Glenn had to go up in these things.

  8. Semper Gumby says:

    Great post and comments.

    A curious moment in John Courtney Murray’s “We Hold These Truths” is his bizarre dislike of “Cape Canaveral.”

    Hidden Figures is a good movie.

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