In Memory
Radm Alan B Shepard
US Navy (Retired)
Admiral Farragut Academy
Class of 1941
"This peaceful place on Earth is dedicated to our Farragut brother, Rear Admiral Alan Shepard, who soared in the heavens."
The First American in Space
and
The Fisth astronaut to walk on the moon.
Mercury 3 Shepard Freedom 7
Apollo 14 Shepard Roosa Mitchell
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Alan Shepard - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) (Rear Admiral, United States Navy, Ret.) was the second person and the first American in space. He later commanded the Apollo 14 mission, and was the fifth person to walk on the moon.
Naval career
Shepard was born in East Derry, New Hampshire, to Lt. Colonel Alan B. Shepard, Sr. and Renza (Emerson) Shepard. He began his naval career after graduation from the United States Naval Academy in 1944, and served on the destroyer USS Cogswell while it was deployed in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. He subsequently entered flight training at Corpus Christi, Texas and Pensacola, Florida, and received his naval aviator wings in 1947. He was assigned to Fighter Squadron 42 based at Norfolk, Virginia and Jacksonville, Florida, and served several tours aboard aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean with the squadron.
In 1950, he attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Maryland. After graduation, he participated in flight test work which included high-altitude tests to obtain data on light at different altitudes and on a variety of air masses over the American continent; test and development experiments of the Navy's in-flight refueling system; carrier suitability trials of the F2H-3 Banshee; and Navy trials of the first angled carrier deck. He was subsequently assigned to Fighter Squadron 193 based at Moffett Field, California, a night fighter unit flying Banshee jets. As operations officer of this squadron, he made two tours to the western Pacific on board the carrier USS Oriskany.
He returned to Patuxent for a second tour of duty and engaged in flight testing the F3H Demon, F8U Crusader, F4D Skyray, and F11F Tiger. He was also project test pilot on the F5D Skylancer, and his last five months at Patuxent were spent as an instructor in the Test Pilot School. He later attended the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, and upon graduating (Master of Arts in military science) in 1958 was subsequently assigned to the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet, as aircraft readiness officer.
He logged more than 8,000 hours flying time—3,700 hours in jet aircraft.
Project Mercury
In 1959, Shepard was one of 110 military test pilots invited by the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration to volunteer for the first manned space flight program. Following a gruelling series of physical and psychological tests, NASA selected Shepard to be one of the original group of seven Mercury astronauts.
In January, 1961 Shepard was chosen for the first American manned mission into space. Although the flight was originally scheduled to take place in October 1960, delays caused by unplanned preparatory work meant that this was postponed several times, initially to March 6, 1961 and finally to May 5, 1961. On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first person to orbit the Earth.
Freedom 7
On May 5, 1961, Shepard piloted the Freedom 7 mission and became the second person, and the first American, to travel into space. He was launched by a Redstone rocket, and unlike Gagarin's 108 minute orbital flight, Shepard stayed on a ballistic trajectory suborbital flight—a flight which carried him to an altitude of 116 statute miles and to a landing point 302 statute miles down the Atlantic Missile Range. Unlike Gagarin, whose flight was strictly automatic, Shepard had some control of Freedom 7, spacecraft attitude in particular. The launch, return from space and subsequent collection by helicopter were seen live on television by millions.
On his successful return to Earth, Shepard was celebrated as a national hero, honored with parades in Washington, New York and Los Angeles and meeting President John F. Kennedy.
Shortly before the launch, Shepard said to himself: "Don't fuck up, Shepard..." This quote was reported as "Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck up" in The Right Stuff, though Shepard confirmed this as a misquote. Regardless, the latter quote has since become known among aviators as "Shepard's Prayer."
According to Gene Kranz in his book Failure Is Not an Option:
“ When reporters asked Shepard what he thought about as he sat atop the Redstone rocket, waiting for liftoff, he had replied, 'The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder.' ”
Later, he was scheduled to pilot the Mercury-Atlas 10 Freedom 7-II, three day extended duration mission in October 1963. The MA-10 mission was cancelled on June 13, 1963. He was the back-up pilot for Gordon "Gordo" Cooper for the MA-9 mission.
Apollo 14
At age 47, and the oldest astronaut in the program, Shepard made his second space flight as commander of Apollo 14, January 31–February 9, 1971, America's third successful lunar landing mission. Shepard piloted his Lunar Module Antares to the most accurate landing of the entire Apollo program. This was the first mission to successfully broadcast color television pictures from the surface of the Moon, using the vidicon tube. (The color camera on Apollo 12 provided a few brief moments of color telecasting before it was inadvertently pointed at the sun, effectively ending its usefulness.) While on the Moon Shepard played golf with a Wilson six-iron head attached to a lunar sample scoop handle [1]. Despite thick gloves and a stiff spacesuit which forced him to swing the club with one hand only, Shepard struck two golf balls with a six iron, driving the second, as he jokingly put it, "miles and miles and miles."[6]
Following Apollo 14, Shepard returned to his position as Chief of the Astronaut Office in June, 1971. He was promoted to Rear Admiral before finally retiring both from the Navy and NASA on August 1, 1974.
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