The tale of Laura Shepard, daughter of the first American in space: she will fly on Jeff Bezos’ rocket dedicated to her father Alan

Sixty years ago, Laura was a 14-year-old girl. On May 5, 1961, his eyes were glued to the television broadcasting, in black and white, live images of the launch of the first American astronaut into space. It had to be a short flight, not in orbit, but on a ballistic trajectory that in 15 minutes would have taken it from ramp number 5 and 6 of Cape Canaveral, to the dive into the Atlantic: “A very risky flight – commented Walter Cronkite, at the CBS station before the launch of the Mercury “Freedom 7” – since our rockets often fail and many wonder if it is really time to send our astronaut into space ».