<P> Since the retirement of the US Space Shuttle in 2011, only Russia and China have maintained human spaceflight capability with the Soyuz program and Shenzhou program . Currently, all expeditions to the International Space Station use Soyuz vehicles, which remain attached to the station to allow quick return if needed . The United States is developing commercial crew transportation to facilitate domestic access to ISS and low Earth orbit, as well as the Orion vehicle for beyond - low Earth orbit applications . </P> <P> While spaceflight has typically been a government - directed activity, commercial spaceflight has gradually been taking on a greater role . The first private human spaceflight took place on 21 June 2004, when SpaceShipOne conducted a suborbital flight, and a number of non-governmental companies have been working to develop a space tourism industry . NASA has also played a role to stimulate private spaceflight through programs such as Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) and Commercial Crew Development (CCDev). With its 2011 budget proposals released in 2010, the Obama administration moved towards a model where commercial companies would supply NASA with transportation services of both people and cargo transport to low Earth orbit . The vehicles used for these services could then serve both NASA and potential commercial customers . Commercial resupply of ISS began two years after the retirement of the Shuttle, and commercial crew launches could begin by 2017 . </P> <P> Human spaceflight capability was first developed during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR), which developed the first intercontinental ballistic missile rockets to deliver nuclear weapons . These rockets were large enough to be adapted to carry the first artificial satellites into low Earth orbit . After the first satellites were launched in 1957 and 1958, the US worked on Project Mercury to launch men singly into orbit, while the USSR secretly pursued the Vostok program to accomplish the same thing . The USSR launched the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin, into a single orbit in Vostok 1 on a Vostok 3KA rocket, on 12 April 1961 . The US launched its first astronaut, Alan Shepard, on a suborbital flight aboard Freedom 7 on a Mercury - Redstone rocket, on 5 May 1961 . Unlike Gagarin, Shepard manually controlled his spacecraft's attitude, and landed inside it . The first American in orbit was John Glenn aboard Friendship 7, launched 20 February 1962 on a Mercury - Atlas rocket . The USSR launched five more cosmonauts in Vostok capsules, including the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova aboard Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963 . The US launched a total of two astronauts in suborbital flight and four into orbit through 1963 . </P> <P> US President John F. Kennedy raised the stakes of the Space Race by setting the goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely by the end of the 1960s . The US started the three - man Apollo program in 1961 to accomplish this, launched by the Saturn family of launch vehicles, and the interim two - man Project Gemini in 1962, which flew 10 missions launched by Titan II rockets in 1965 and 1966 . Gemini's objective was to support Apollo by developing American orbital spaceflight experience and techniques to be used in the Moon mission . </P>

When did the us first go into space