This Day in Spaceflight History: 3 Launches, 2 to the Moon

Among the animals that NASA sent to space as part of that preparation was Ham the chimpanzee, the first chimp in space. Ham returned safely to Earth, but other primates perished during American test flights in the 1940s and 1950s. On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard took off aboard another Mercury Redstone rocket, becoming the first American in space.