On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space, making a brief suborbital mission that marked the first manned launch of Project Mercury.

Roger D. Launius, a senior curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, reconsiders NASA’s pioneering program, examining the origins of these first attempts to reach into space, the Cold War “space race,” and Project Mercury’s meaning a half-century later.

Sponsored by Adam Starr and the Lawrence D. Starr Charitable Foundation.

Watch at c-span.org