Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle

Mercury-Redstone 3 lifts off from Cape Canaveral on May 5, 1961, carrying Alan Shepard in the Freedom 7 capsule on the first American crewed spaceflight. It is a modest machine next to what followed: a slim, single-stage rocket from Wernher von Braun's Huntsville team, built to throw Shepard on a 15-minute suborbital arc rather than into orbit. That small step is exactly why it belongs at the start of the crewed line.