Today, May 5 in History, Alan Shepherd Becomes First American in Space

[LongTomH]

There are tributes to Alan Shepherd and his historic flight all over Google News today.

From ABC News: This Day In History: Alan Shepherd Becomes First American to Travel Into Space:

Born in 1923, Shepard was a decorated pilot with the United States Navy before he was recruited to become one of the Mercury astronauts at NASA in 1959. Shepard would make history two years later as the first American to travel into space while riding in the Freedom 7 spacecraft.

Shepard reached a peak altitude of 116 miles and a top speed of 5,180 mph during his 15 minute flight, according to Space.com. The achievement came just a month after Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to travel into space.

Shepard's flight helped renew faith in the U.S. space program. In the following years, NASA would see major successes like John Glenn becoming the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962, and Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins becoming the first men to travel to the moon in 1969. Shepard, too, would make history again in 1971 when he became the oldest person to walk on the moon at age 47

His home town newspaper reports on a memorial to him: A Salute to Astronaut Alan Shepherd:

DERRY — The date May 5, 1961, is etched in many minds and hearts in Derry.

On that day 55 years ago, native son Alan B. Shepard Jr. rocketed into history as the first American in space aboard Freedom 7, putting Derry on the map as “Spacetown, USA” and giving friends and family members back home a lofty mission to honor one of their own.

Now, a new surge in Shepard interest is taking shape with many working on ways to bring a permanent monument to town to honor the East Derry flyboy who also went on to fly with Apollo 14 and become the fifth man to set foot on the moon.

..............//snip

Derry has honored Shepard through the decades by naming buildings after the famed astronaut, including the post office, buildings at Pinkerton Academy — Shepard’s alma mater, Class of 1940 — and a Shepard room at the Derry History Museum, which is full of family items and historical astronaut memorabilia.

Derry police officers wear Shepard’s name on their arm patches, and Pinkerton sports teams are the Astros.

Alan Shepherd's Wikipedia page

A hearty salute to Adm Shepherd for putting the US back in the Space Race!

[virtualobserver]

1. When I was a kid, I was taught that he was the first MAN in space.

I was shocked when I found out that he wasn't.

[longship]

2. Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins were not the first to travel to the moon.

That would be Apollo 8 with Borman, Lovell, and Anders. They orbited the Moon, but did not land. That mission was also the one where Anders photographed the Earth from Lunar orbit that became famous as "Earthrise".


Apollo 11 wasn't even the second manned mission to the moon. That honor went to Apollo 10 which did everything short of landing.

So the journalist who wrote that piece kind of got it wrong.

My best to you.


BTW, Alan Shepard was the one who teed off a golf ball on the moon. (Actually more of a sand trap shot. )

[Tommy_Carcetti]

3. From one of the best movies ever:

[longship]

4. Great flick.

Great cast. I have it on DVD. I guess I'll watch it tonight in honor of Shepard.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. Don't forget to say a prayer.

[malthaussen]

7. Somehow, I think they omitted a word...

...my instincts tell me that CDR Shepard put an adjective before "candle" that was omitted for decorum's sake.

The first school paper I ever wrote, in first grade no less, was about good ol' Al.

As Tom Wolfe points out in The Right Stuff, lighting that candle was a pretty gutsy decision, because our rockets had a tendency to blow up at that time. Spaceflight became so routine, we tend to forget that it was still a pretty iffy proposition in 1961.

-- Mal

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. Well, they did show Shepard's infamous "prayer."

"Dear God, please don't let me fuck up."

I'm surprised The Right Stuff got a PG rating. Nothing too explicit, but more than one f-bomb in it, a bare buttocks shot of Shepard getting an enema during training, and a few flashes of nudity during the fan dance scene towards the end.

I'm glad it didn't get rated higher, because I got to see it when I was 8 years old and it was one of those movies I never forgot the first time I saw it. And I watched it a couple of days ago and it's just as absolutely magnificent as it was the first time.

But the montage of all the rocket failures preceding Shepard's launch brings home Wolfe's point.

[FLPanhandle]

9. I agree.

Amazing movie and, unlike most Hollywood tales, very close to historically accurate.

It took a lot of guts to that back then.

[hunter]

6. This is the kind of ride Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are hoping to popularize.

One expects their vehicles will not be so dangerous.

Riding a Redstone missile into space was a very gutsy thing to do. This missile was similar to the German V2 rocket, steered by graphite vanes inserted into the rocket exhaust.

V2 tail, showing graphite vanes:



This was one of the greater concerns in human-rating the Redstone. Graphite does not gently fail, it's brittle, it shatters. A failed vane might cause a rocket to tumble, destroying the rocket and the astronaut riding it.

Here's a photo of the tail end of a Redstone, along with Gus Grissom who flew the next Mercury mission and was later killed in the Apollo 1 accident:



My grandfather was one of many engineers who landed men on the moon. He wasn't always functional in ordinary society but he was a wizard with nonferrous metals.

I watched all of these space explorations with great enthusiasm. I still do.