From Alan Shepard to Artemis, celebrating 65 years of Americans in space

On the morning of May 5th, 1961, 37-year-old Alan Shepard woke up, ate a breakfast (consisting of a filet mignon wrapped in bacon, scrambled eggs, and orange juice), strapped into the Freedom 7 rocket, and blasted off into space, becoming the first American astronaut to do so. Shepard’s historic flight — and the first crewed flight of Project Mercury — did two things. It demonstrated that after getting beat to space by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, America was still in the race. …