Alan Shepard became the first American to travel into space during the Mercury-Redstone 3 mission.
Shepard launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on May 5, 1961, aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft. His suborbital flight lasted about 15 minutes and reached an altitude of roughly 116 statute miles. Unlike an orbital mission, the flight followed a ballistic trajectory and returned Shepard to Earth without completing a full orbit.
The flight came less than a month after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. Shepard’s mission demonstrated that the United States could launch and recover a crewed spacecraft, supporting the larger goals of Project Mercury and the space race.
John Glenn later became the first American to orbit Earth, flying Friendship 7 in February 1962. Shepard eventually returned to space as commander of Apollo 14 in 1971 and became the fifth person to walk on the Moon. These distinctions make “first American in space” and “first American in orbit” different answers.