On 5 May 1961, Alan B. Shepard became the first American in space, breaking two FAI records for highest altitude and greatest mass lifted to altitude for his suborbital spaceflight.
Shepard’s achievement came just 23 days after Yuri A. Gagarin became the first human to orbit Earth.
It’s 60 years to the day since US Naval Lieutenant Commander Malcom D. Ross set two FAI ballooning world records by soaring to an altitude of 34,668m above the ground.
Accompanied by Lieutenant Commander Victor G. Prather, a medical officer from the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, Ross took off from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Antietam the Gulf of Mexico on the morning of May 4, 1961.
On 19 April 1971, 50 years ago, the world’s first space station – Salyut 1 – was launched.
Its debut success for the Soviet Salyut program paved the way for the future of space exploration, allowing astronauts to spend extended periods of time in space and conduct the scientific experiments and make the observations that have shaped human history, as well as breaking numerous space records, all ratified by the FAI.
On 12 April 2021 the FAI is celebrating the 60th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s historic orbit around the Earth, for which he achieved three FAI world records and made a lasting impact on human space exploration.
In November 2020 FAI has ratified the following simultaneous Paragliding World records: Straight distance of 582 km and Free distance using up to 3 turn points of 587.5 km, performed on October 10, 2019, by three Brazilian pilots Marcelo Prieto (Enzo 3 / Ozone), Rafael de Moraes Barros (Evox / Niviuk), Rafael Monteiro Saladini (Enzo 3 / Ozone). The launch was in Tacima - Paraíba (Brazil).
