Jay Barbree is a correspondent for NBC News, focusing on space travel. Barbree is the only journalist to have covered every manned space mission in the United States, beginning with the first American in space, Alan Shepard aboard Freedom 7 in 1961, continuing through to the last mission of the Space Shuttle, Atlantis's STS-135 mission in July 2011. Barbree has been present for all 135 space shuttle launches, and every manned launch for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo eras. In total, Barbree has been witness to 166 manned space launches.