More than four decades ago, on May 5, 1961, a Navy commander squeezed into a spaceship seat the size of a bathtub and was blasted into outer space for a history-making trip. American astronaut Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. spent a scant 15 minutes in flight aboard his Mercury capsule, Freedom 7, but it was enough to electrify the nation’s space program, sagging in the face of repeated Russian triumphs.