
Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr., the first American to make a space flight, relaxes beside a pool at a Cocoa Beach Hotel in Cape Canaveral, Florida on July 16, 1961. Mrs. Louise Shepard reads a book in the background. This week a second astronaut will duplicate ShepardÂs feat by making a suborbital flight from Cape Canaveral aboard a Mercury spacecraft atop a Redstone rocket. (AP Photo/Murray Becker Ref #: PA.8776659