I liked Al Shepherd a hell of a lot more than that fraud john Glenn. Al was a Navy guy and also friendly with conservative Coors family as he had I think a Coors beer distributorship.
“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.”
NASA was good when the Germans ran it.
Operation:Paperclip
After a nine hour launch delay, Shepard also reported that the US had launched “the first wetback into space.”
My neighbor was the accountant.
a few more of the astronauts of that era had Coors distributorships, IIRC...Stuart "Rusty" Roosa...the command module pilot of this same flight (14) had the distributorship for southern Mississippi, after leaving NASA.... Seems the only links I can find are those of Roosa's early (age of 61) passing
I was right out of college, living in Houston apt. with a lot of NASA people...some very close to the Mercury 7 and Gemini. I met several of them including Glenn and Armstrong.
At the time Glenn was the national hero, and one of mine. I met him and his family. I was very disappointed the first time I met him...not very friendly. One good thing about him...he probably was the best husband and father of the bunch...wife was very sweet. He wasn't one of the party boys.
I think some of them had trouble handling the celebrity that went with job. They were unknown pilots and suddenly were famous and recognized everywhere they went. I don't think NASA had a program to help them handle the instant fame. Glenn made the comment he couldn't balance his checkbook...people were keeping, not cashing his checks.
I did get a lot of autographed pictures of all of the original 7 and Gemini astronauts.
It was a fun time...especially to be young and living in Houston.