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 didn't mind studying. Obviously math and the physical science subjects interested me more than some of the more artistic subjects, but I think I was a pretty good student.
I woke up an hour before I was supposed to, and started going over the mental checklist: where do I go from here, what do I do? I don't remember eating anything at all, just going through the physical, getting into the suit. We practiced that so much, it was all rote.
We wanted to be in great shape, we wanted to be able to cope with zero gravity, we wanted to be able to cope with accelerations and decelerations and so on. So all of us trained so that we were probably in the best physical condition we had ever been in up until that point.
We had some adverse conditions in the '60s, in the '70s and the '80s. The agency has risen above that in the past and will rise above that again.
I just wanted to be the first one to fly for America, not because I'd end up in the pages of history books.
The suit was so clumsy, being pressurized, it was impossible to get two hands comfortably on the handle and it's impossible to make any kind of a turn. It was kind of a one-handed chili-dip.
And I think that still is true of this business - which is basically research and development - that you probably spend more time in planning and training and designing for things to go wrong, and how you cope with them, than you do for things to go right.
You have to be there not for the fame and glory and recognition and being a page in a history book, but you have to be there because you believe your talent and ability can be applied effectively to operation of the spacecraft.
Then I thought, with the same clubhead speed, the ball's going to go at least six times as far. There's absolutely no drag, so if you do happen to spin it, it won't slice or hook 'cause there's no atmosphere to make it turn.
Of course, in our grade school, in those days, there were no organized sports at all. We just went out and ran around the school yard for recess.
Al is on the surface. And it's been a long way, but we're here.
Why don't you fix your little problem and light this candle?
Obviously I was challenged by becoming a Naval aviator, by landing aboard aircraft carriers and so on.
But when I was selected, after my very first tour of squadron duty, to become one of the youngest candidates for the test pilot school, I began to realize, maybe you are a little bit better.