Alan Shepard
Alan Shepard
Rear Admiral Alan Bartlett "Al" Shepard Jr.was an American naval officer and aviator, test pilot, one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts, and businessman, who in May 1961 made the first manned Mercury flight. Shepard's craft entered space, but did not achieve orbit. He became the second person, and the first American, to travel into space, and the first person to manually control the orientation of his spacecraft...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAstronaut
Date of Birth18 November 1923
CityDerry, NH
CountryUnited States of America
I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after all.
The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder
The first plane ride was in a homemade glider my buddy and I built. Unfortunately we didn't get more than four feet off the ground, because it crashed.
Whether you are an astronomer or a life scientist, geophysicist, or a pilot, you've got to be there because you believe you are good in your field, and you can contribute, not because you are going to get a lot of fame or whatever when you get back.
I'd like to say I was smart enough to finish six grades in five years, but I think perhaps the teacher was just glad to get rid of me.
You may not have any extra talent, but maybe you are just paying more attention to what you are doing.
If somebody'd said before the flight, 'Are you going to get carried away looking at the Earth from the Moon?' I would have say, 'No, no way.' But yet when I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon, I cried.
Why don't you light that candle ?
It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.
I realized up there that our planet is not infinite. It's fragile. That may not be obvious to a lot of folks, and it's tough that people are fighting each other here on Earth instead of trying to get together and live on this planet. We look pretty vulnerable in the darkness of space.
They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one.
It's been a long way, but we're here.
So even though we were there competing with each other for the first ride, we were still acting as a team, and helping each other in those days.