The USSR was the first to put a human into space when Yury A. Gagarin made one orbit of the earth in Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961. His flight time was 1 hr 48 min . He landed safely in Siberia. In the next two years five more Vostok flights were made. The pilot of Vostok 6 was Valentina V. Tereshkova, the first woman to fly in space. It was  launched on June 16, 1963, and she orbited the earth 48 times.

Meanwhile, a U.S. program, called Mercury, was taking shape. On May 5, 1961, Comdr. Alan B. Shepard, Jr., of the U.S. Navy became the first American in space. The Mercury spacecraft, named Freedom 7,  made a 15-min suborbital flight. On Feb. 20, 1962, Lt. Col. John H. Glenn, Jr., became the first U.S. astronaut to orbit the earth, in a flight of three orbits. Three additional Mercury flights were made in 1962 and 1963 by Lt. Col. M. Scott Carpenter; Comdr. Walter (Wally) M. Schirra, Jr., and Maj. Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr. 

In May 1961 U.S. President John F. Kennedy had instituted the Apollo program, designed to land a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth.The historic flight of Apollo 11 was launched on July 16.  Astronauts Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. and Neil A. Armstrong entered the lunar orbit. Armstrong's first words were, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."