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On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space. His flight aboard the Mercury Freedom 7 spacecraft lasted 15 minutes, 22 seconds. Just 3 weeks earlier, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin became the first man in space.
The Freedom 7 had two parachutes inside its upper section. The craft re-entered the atmosphere bottom end down. The shield on underside protected the rest of the spacecraft from the tremendous heat generated as it plunged back through Earth's atmosphere.
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