Alan Shepard enter the history books as First Men in Space
Follow three weeks later by Yuri Gagarin as First men who orbit earth
In USA they will hail that achievement that beat the Soviets, but soon caught up by reality.
That was Short Suborbital flight of 15 minutes, while Gagarin stay 108 minute and Titov stay a day in space.
After Titov Vostok-2 flight, in August 1961 the entire Mercury Redstone program look pathetic.
Original planned would the seven Mercury astronaut do a Suborbital flight MR-3 to MR-10
and after almost disaster of MR-4 flight, were Grissom nearly drowned, Mercury-Redstone flights were canceled
All effort was put into Mercury-Atlas flights
Very interesting speculation is here:
With the success of Mercury Redstone-3 would do JFK "We shall go too Moon" speech ?
He could made fatal mistake and "He rests on his laurels", until soviet beat them in space ?
and For Soviets,
I think that defeated and humiliate Nikita Khrushchev will look to Moon in sky, them make a phone call to Vladimir Chelomei, his favorite Rocket manufacture...