Alan Shepard

Alan Shepard was the second person and the first American astronaut to go into space.

Found 8 thoughts of Alan Shepard

The first plane ride was in a homemade glider my buddy and I built. Unfortunately we didn't get more than four feet off the ground, because it crashed.

You know, being a test pilot isn't always the healthiest business in the world. I had been involved in testing off and on for six or seven years, flying stranger airplanes higher and faster than we could talk about, and having done it reasonably successfully.

Whether you are an astronomer or a life scientist, geophysicist, or a pilot, you've got to be there because you believe you are good in your field, and you can contribute, not because you are going to get a lot of fame or whatever when you get back.

The pilot looked at his cues of attitude and speed and orientation and so on and responded as he would from the same cues in an airplane, but there was no way it flew the same. The simulators had showed us that.

They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one.

I think the sense of family and family achievement, plus the discipline which I received there from that one-room school were really very helpful in what I did later on.

I thought I was pretty normal, I did chores around the farm, had my own newspaper route to make money to buy a bicycle.

I didn't mind studying. Obviously math and the physical science subjects interested me more than some of the more artistic subjects, but I think I was a pretty good student.