Alan Shepard was a naval aviator, a test pilot and one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts. He was the first American to go to space (1961), and the only Mercury astronaut who also went to the moon (1971). He missed flying in the Gemini program due to developing Meniere's disease but continued to serve with NASA. He later had corrective surgery and was able to return for the Apollo 14 mission. Shepard is currently the oldest man to have walked on the moon and the first to hit a golf ball there.
This is the famous photo of the group in pressure suits with Slayton and Glenn wearing work boots painted silver because not all the customized boots were ready yet.
Shephard was born in New Hampshire and the State House in Concord has a memorial of him.
Here's a photo of Shepard (near the middle with a cigar) in the Control Room at the Johnson Space Center in Houston (date & mission unknown).
The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. has Shepard's Mercury capsule, Freedom 7, named 7 for the Mercury astronauts. We visited the museum in 2024.
We've visited the Kennedy Space Center in Florida twice, once in 1990 and again in 2017. This is a photo from 1990 of a memorial to the Mercury 7.
The rest of the photos are from 2017.
Seeing one of the Apollo capsules is always a thrill and here is Apollo 14 which flew to the moon with Alan Shepard as Commander.
These are two books by Shepard, et al, from my spaceflight library.
Shepard's ashes were dropped from a helicopter over the Pacific Ocean so there's no grave to visit. But there is a family plot in Forest Hill Cemetery in East Derry, New Hampshire. And there's a cenotaph remembering Alan and his wife, Louise (photo from the internet).
RIP Alan B. Shepard.
No comments:
Post a Comment