| The first American in outer space (May 1961) was a naval aviator and astronaut, Alan B. Shepard, Jr., now a retired Rear Admiral and member of the Navy Memorial Foundation's Board of Directors. He is the first in a long succession of naval aviators to enter America's space program‹including Marine Corps pilot John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth (February 1962), and Navy pilot Neil Armstrong, the first person to set foot on the Moon (July 1969). Conducted under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, these and all other U. S. manned space flights ‹until the advent of today's shuttle missions‹ wound up in the hands of U. S. Navy recovery forces at sea, as portrayed in this bronze relief.
The Navy continues to serve as a pipeline of aviation expertise for the nation's astronaut programs
Sculptor: Robert Summers.
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