STEVE EMBER: In nineteen fifty-seven, the Soviet Union launched the first electronic satellite, Sputnik One. The United States successfully launched its first spacecraft less than four months later. Now the two sides were racing to see who could launch the first human space traveler.

On April twelfth, nineteen sixty-one, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin flew in space for one hundred eight minutes. He circled the Earth once. The Soviets again were winning the "space race," but not for long. Three weeks later the United States also put a man into space. He was a thirty-seven-year-old officer in the Navy -- Alan Shepard.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Alan Bartlett Shepard, Junior, was born on November eighteenth, nineteen twenty-three in East Derry, New Hampshire. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in nineteen forty-four. He married soon after his graduation. Then he served for a short time on a destroyer in the Pacific during World War Two.

In nineteen forty-seven, Alan Shepard became a pilot in the Navy. Later he became a test pilot. The life of a test pilot can be very dangerous. It helped prepare Alan Shepard for an even greater danger in the future.

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STEVE EMBER: The successes that the Soviet Union had with its Sputnik program caused the United States to speed up its plans for a space program. The Americans decided to launch a satellite as soon as possible. The first attempt failed. The rocket exploded during launch.