Two extremely rare views of the first US manned space mission taken by Bill Taub on launch day while Alan Shepard boarded the Freedom 7 spacecraft at Cape Canaveral’s Pad 5. First photograph: On the morning of May 5th a special van (foreground) transported Alan Shepard from his isolated living quarters on Cape Canaveral to Launch Complex 5 where the Mercury Redstone 3 awaited in a glow of floodlights and clouds of vapor as liquid oxygen was being pumped into the rocket. Second photograph: Though he was the first astronaut to go into space, Alan Shepard was aided at every step by many knowing men, including his six colleagues. While Shepard was inside Freedom 7 (out of view to the right) in the White Room at Cape Canaveral’s Pad 5 for launch, the astronauts’ physician Dr. William K. Douglas (right) checked his condition, John Glenn (left) made sure the capsule was ready for him; Gordon Cooper briefed him on weather and the missile; Gus Grissom rode with him in the van and stayed with him until the hatch was closed; Scott Carpenter and Walter Schirra chased after the Redstone in F-106 jets to study its flight and Donald Slayton sat in the Mercury Control Center to communicate with Shepard over the radio so he would get instructions from a familiar voice. (from LIFE magazine, May 12, 1961, p. 20).