Naval pilot Alan Shepard was part of the first group of seven astronauts for NASA's Mercury program and in January 1961 was chosen to be the first American on a manned space mission. The flight was originally scheduled to take place in October 1960, but delays pushed it back to March 6, 1961. Flight preparation delays pushed the launch date back to May 2 and a weather delay pushed it back a few more days to May 5. In the meantime the Soviet Union beat us to that historic feat by launching Yuri Gagarin into space on his 108 minute flight on April 12. to become not only the first human in space, but the first to orbit the Earth.
When Freedom 7 launched at 9:34 AM EDT with Shepard aboard on May 5 and 45 million people watching it live on television the flight plans for the first American in space were more modest. It was a suborbital flight on a ballistic trajectory that reached a 116 mile height (187 km) and traveled 302 miles (486 km) down the Atlantic Missile Range before splashdown off the Bahamas Unlike Gagarin's totally automatic flight weeks earlier, Shepard had some ability to control the Freedom 7 capsule
With the successful conclusion of the Freedom 7 flight the race to the Moon by the superpowers was on in earnest. Shepard would later command the Apollo 14 lunar mission and become the fifth person to walk on the Moon.
But America's successful road to the Moon started with a suborbital flight piloted by our first man in space.