Alan Shepard
You have to be there not for the fame and glory and recognition and being a page in a history book, but you have to be there because you believe your talent and ability can be applied effectively to operation of the spacecraft.Collection: History
We worked with the engineers in the design and construction and testing phases in those various areas, then we would get back together at the end of the week and brief each other as to what had gone on.Collection: Design
It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.Collection: Space
Later, in the early teens, I used to ride my bike every Saturday morning to the nearest airport, ten miles away, push airplanes in and out of the hangars, and clean up the hangars.Collection: Morning
You know, being a test pilot isn't always the healthiest business in the world.Collection: Business
They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one.Collection: Space
Of course, in our grade school, in those days, there were no organized sports at all. We just went out and ran around the school yard for recess.Collection: Sports
I think all of us certainly believed the statistics which said that probably 88% chance of mission success and maybe 96% chance of survival. And we were willing to take those odds.Collection: Chance
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.Collection: Science
I'd like to say I was smart enough to finish six grades in five years, but I think perhaps the teacher was just glad to get rid of me.Collection: Teacher
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.Collection: Attitude
It's been a long way, but we're here.
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.
Obviously I was challenged by becoming a Naval aviator, by landing aboard aircraft carriers and so on.
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.
We also knew it would be difficult, because of the financial condition of the family, for me to go to college.
You may not have any extra talent, but maybe you are just paying more attention to what you are doing.
I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after all.
We wanted to be in great shape, we wanted to be able to cope with zero gravity, we wanted to be able to cope with accelerations and decelerations and so on. So all of us trained so that we were probably in the best physical condition we had ever been in up until that point.
You've done it in the simulator so many times, you don't have a real sense of being excited when the flight is going on. You're excited before, but as soon as the liftoff occurs, you are busy doing what you have to do.
The excitement really didn't start to build until the trailer - which was carrying me, with a space suit with ventilation and all that sort of stuff - pulled up to the launch pad.
I woke up an hour before I was supposed to, and started going over the mental checklist: where do I go from here, what do I do? I don't remember eating anything at all, just going through the physical, getting into the suit. We practiced that so much, it was all rote.
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.
But when I was selected, after my very first tour of squadron duty, to become one of the youngest candidates for the test pilot school, I began to realize, maybe you are a little bit better.
And I think that still is true of this business - which is basically research and development - that you probably spend more time in planning and training and designing for things to go wrong, and how you cope with them, than you do for things to go right.
Of course I was delighted the flight was over, but I still had to worry about cleaning up inside the cabin, I had to worry about the hatch, how to get in the sling, and so on.
The rocket had worked perfectly, and all I had to do was survive the reentry forces. You do it all, in a flight like that, in a rather short period of time, just 16 minutes as a matter of fact.
So everything turned out fine, and we were given the opportunity to go to Washington and be briefed on the project of man in space, and given the opportunity to choose whether we wanted to get involved or not.
Then there was the challenge to keep doing better and better, to fly the best test flight that anybody had ever flown. That led to my being recognized as one of the more experienced test pilots, and that led to the astronaut business.
I realized up there that our planet is not infinite. It's fragile. That may not be obvious to a lot of folks, and it's tough that people are fighting each other here on Earth instead of trying to get together and live on this planet. We look pretty vulnerable in the darkness of space.Collection: Peace
When I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon I criedCollection: Moon
Why don't you fix your little problem and light this candle?Collection: Moon
If somebody'd said before the flight, 'Are you going to get carried away looking at the Earth from the Moon?' I would have say, 'No, no way.' But yet when I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon, I cried.Collection: Moon
The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder.Collection: Ships
I can hit it farther on the moon. But actually, my swing is better here on Earth.Collection: Moon
I just wanted to be the first one to fly for America, not because I'd end up in the pages of history books.Collection: Book
Roger, liftoff, and the clock is started.Collection: Airplane
Al is on the surface. And it's been a long way, but we're here.Collection: Moon
Why don't you light that candle ?Collection: Science
Got more dirt than ball. Here we go again.Collection: Golf
I guess those of us who have been with NASA kind of understand the tremendous excitement and thrills and celebrations and national pride that went with the Apollo program is just something you're not going to create again, probably until we go to Mars.Collection: Pride
We're going to see passengers in space stations in 15 years, who will be able to buy a ticket and spend a weekend in space.Collection: Weekend
I know you're all saying I can go to the moon but I can't find Pasadena.Collection: Moon
Unfortunately, the suit is so stiff, I can't do this with two hands, but I'm going to try a little sand-trap shot here.Collection: Golf
There's no question that all the generations got excited about the first flights, with Kennedy's inspiration to go to the moon, leaving the planet for the first time, and fortunately coming back.Collection: Inspiration
I think first of all you have to be there for the right reason.Collection: Thinking
We need a continuing presence in space.Collection: Space
Because of the suit I was wearing, I couldn't make a good pivot on the swing. And I had to hit the ball with one hand.Collection: Golf
The same way people are now paying a couple thousand dollars to fly to other parts of the world, people will be paying $50,000 to spend a weekend on a space station.Collection: Couple
On the periscope . . . . What a beautiful view. Cloud cover over Florida - three to four tenths near the eastern coast. Obscured up to Hatteras . . . I can see [lake] Okeechobee. Identify Andros Island. Identify the reefs.Collection: Beautiful