It's hard to believe that it was 37 years ago this month on May 5, 1961 that Alan Shepard rocketed skyward to become America's first man in space. Lieutenant Commander Alan B. Shepard, Jr., was a Navy test pilot before being selected by NASA for Project Mercury. He was the first of the Mercury astronauts to launch into space, his capsule bearing the name Freedom Seven.

His flight recorded just a few minutes of weightlessness, but served as a message to the world that America had joined the space race. The success of Shepard's mission also prompted President Kennedy to commit the country to reaching the moon.

In a Rose Garden ceremony, the President spoke those immortal words, "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."

The missions that followed missions -- including both the Gemini and Apollo programs -- took the nation up to and beyond Neil Armstrong's famous "small step for a man" on the Lunar surface.

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