Alan Shepard (1923 – 1998)
Second person and the first American in space.
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This is the first time that astronauts of the first group have exhibited things that are personal and sentimental to them. We hope it will encourage youngsters to follow in our footsteps.
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.
I just wanted to be the first one to fly for America, not because I'd end up in the pages of history books.
There were similarities between these two incidents. The similarity was too much success ... over-confidence and complacency, quite frankly.
One can make the argument that the success of the Shepard flight enabled the decision to go to the moon.
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.
Now that we've lost Alan Shepard, I can't help feeling that something is wrong with this picture; astronauts aren't supposed to grow old and leave this Earth forever. In our memories, they remain as Shepard was on that sunny Friday morning in May 1961, when he lay inside a tiny Mercury capsule ready to be hurled into space atop a Redstone booster.
If we had said 30 years ago that we were going to have only two incidents with casualties, we would have thought, 'Boy, that's great. To me, that indicates that the program has really exceeded what the early expectations were.
With the passing of Alan Shepard, our nation has lost an outstanding patriot, one of its finest pilots -and I have lost a very close friend.
We're going to see passengers in space stations in 15 years, who will be able to buy a ticket and spend a weekend in space.
We need a continuing presence in space.
There's no question that all the generations got excited about the first flights, with Kennedy's inspiration to go to the moon, leaving the planet for the first time, and fortunately coming back.
I think about the personal accomplishment, but there's more of a sense of the grand achievement by all the people who could put this man on the moon.
His flight was a tremendous statement about tenacity, courage and brilliance. He crawled on top of that rocket that had never before flown into space with a person aboard, and he did it. That was an unbelievable act of courage.
Alan Shepard was a great man, a great leader. We were pioneers. If you are an explorer, what more can you ask than to travel into space.
No way that any astronaut worth his salt volunteered for the space program to become a hero. You don't select astronauts who want fame and fortune. You select them because they're the best test pilots in the world, they know it, and it's a personal challenge for them. And the astronauts of today are exactly the same.
The first one I hit pretty flush with one hand - went about 200 yards. And the second one I shanked, and it rolled into a crater about 40 yards away.
Certainly Shepard's flight was a major moment in American history and it clearly showed we were going to respond to the Soviet challenge.
I know you're all saying I can go to the moon but I can't find Pasadena.
His service will always loom large in America's history. He is one of the great heroes of modern America.
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