The Mercury program was a series of missions designed to orbit a human around Earth. The first American in space was Alan Shepard during the Mercury-Redstone 3 mission, also known as Freedom 7.

However, it's important to note that Yuri Gagarin from the Soviet Union was the first human in space during the Vostok 1 mission.

So, while the Mercury program achieved human space travel, it wasn't the first to do so.