50 Years Ago: Alan Shepard, First American in Space
Apollo 14 Alan Shepard Golf age 47 oldest American on the Moon video
Posted on 05/05/2014 1:19:44 PM PDT by RIghtwardHo
On this day in 1961, Alan B. Shepard Jr. muttered to himself, "Don't f*** up, Shepard...", huddled into the Freedom 7 Mercury capsule, and lifted off to become the first America to reach space. These are the photographs from the historic suborbital flight.
My grandfather had business dealings with Jim McDivitt after he left NASA. I was awestruck at meeting him at informal business lunches and the men’s club breakfasts at the church when I was a kid.
Back when America was great.
Those Mercury rockets were amazingly small. If a Saturn V was a bus, the Mercury rockets were smart cars.
I was in French class when Shephard lifted off. Our teacher had a transistor radio that we listened to the coverage on. It was a great day for America. I feel so lucky to have lived during those times.
If one looks up the word, ‘cool’ in the dictionary there will be a photograph of Alan Shepherd, to whit:
During his entire, sub-orbital flight his heartbeat never rose above 80 beats-per-minute. All other astronauts were in the 150 - 160 beats-per-minute range or higher, including Neil Armstrong. He repeated that same ‘cool’ for his subsequent flight.
In one of my classes towards my MS Mech. Eng degree, I had to design the Mercury capsule heat sheild.
I wouldn’t have gone in that thing.
i thank God to have witnessed the His Grace shed on the America i love.
Great pics.
His body snagged in the balloon lines. I've wondered if that's why there's that membrane around the neck, to try to avoid that issue.
That mission sort of got lost in the news cycle by Shepard's success the next day.
When men were men. butch haircuts, skinny ties, white shirts and the music was like this, not some hip-hop garbage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSsiS-v6_6M&feature=kp
When gasoline smelled like gasoline, and Caddy's has skirts and they were long and sleek.
We had a Space Program, we knew Communism Sucked and we wanted to beat the Ruskies, now we are bumming a ride from them, most kids think Communism is cool and we are shell of what we were in 62'...
Can we build a time machine and go back, or will a leader emerge that believes in America's Greatness again? I do think he will emerge soon, I can tell ya about it but then I'd have to give ya the punch line from an old SR-71 Joke...
The boys are really going to love this!
Bookmark
Thanks.
Yes, and women were women and everyone knew the difference. Gone forever I fear.
especially when you have them huddle around and recite Shepard’s Prayer :)
“You ain’t lost until you are lost at Mach 3?”
Of course, he was a Navy pilot. :’)
During Apollo 14 they were having a problem getting hard dock, and after they finally got it, NASA told them to undock and try it again, because they wanted to make sure both the hardware and the software (IOW, the crew) were in proper working order, the concern being, docking after the LM returned from the lunar surface.
Shepard didn’t want to it, said if need be he’d suit up and hard dock the damned things by hand. NASA didn’t go for it.
50 Years Ago: Alan Shepard, First American in Space
Apollo 14 Alan Shepard Golf age 47 oldest American on the Moon video
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