NASA: Tales of Triumph and Disaster - Part 1

40 years ago history was made worldwide, when the first man was landed on the moon. This will tell the ever continuing story of endeavours undertaken by the USA at the forefront of manned and unmanned space exploration.



The Astronauts part of the Mercury Mission

On July 1958 NASA was established, with one simple brief: to beat the Russians in the space race.  Drawn from military training pilots the hope was to get humans safely into space, but quickly and to a deadline.

During the 1950’s the American’s were still trailing the Russians in the space race.  NASA firstly established the Mercury programme to train seven astronauts to be ready for space. One included Alan Shepard who NASA selected for America’s first manned mission into space. Scientists at NASA were shaken as Russia launched their first manned space flight on the 15^th April 1961, only a few weeks before NASA’s first manned mission was to be launched.

On May 5^th Alan Shepard’s flight was still a history-making event. Whereas Yuri Gagarin had only been a ‘passenger’ in the vehicle, Shepard was able to manoeuvre the Freedom 7 space capsule himself.  Shepard made a safe return to Earth with a splashdown at sea and recovery by helicopter, even better still this was all captured on camera and broadcast to millions worldwide. As he returned to mainland America, he was honoured with parades in Washington, New York and Los Angeles.

This historic event signalled the first of many missions by NASA and further joint projects with various contries, including Great Britain, find out more in “NASA: Tales of Triumph and Disaster – Part 2” , coming soon)