Who was the first American astronaut to travel into space?

The first American astronaut to travel into space was Alan Shepard. He piloted NASA’s Mercury-Redstone 3 mission, known as Freedom 7, on May 5, 1961, becoming the first American human space traveler.

Shepard’s flight was suborbital rather than orbital: Freedom 7 reached an altitude of about 187.5 kilometres and splashed down in the Atlantic after roughly 15 minutes. He became the second person in space, following Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s orbital flight on April 12, 1961.

John Glenn is a frequent mix-up because he became the first American to orbit Earth, aboard Friendship 7 in February 1962. Gus Grissom followed Shepard on the second crewed Mercury suborbital mission, while Neil Armstrong did not reach space until later. Shepard eventually returned to space in 1971 as commander of Apollo 14 and became the fifth person to walk on the Moon.