Alan Bartlett Shepard, was born on November 18, 1923, in East Derry, New Hampshire, USA. His father, Alan Bartlett Shepard Sr., who had served in France during World War I, was called into active duty in World War II, where he reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. It would seem that his son, Alan was destined to follow in his father’s footsteps into the military.
Alan Shepard Jr. attended Adams Elementary School in Derry, where he distinguished himself as an outstanding student. Consequently, he was skipped at the end of Grade 5 into Oak Street Middle School in Derry. His academic performance in Grade 7 was so high that he also skipped Grade 8, and in 1936 was enrolled in Grade 9 at the prestigious Pinkerton Academy. While at the Academy, Alan acquired a passion for air flight that he fed by establishing a model airplane club at the school. As a Christmas present in 1938, Alan’s parents provided him with a flight on a Douglas DC-3.
On the completion of his senior year at Pinkerton Academy in 1940, Alan passed the entrance examinations to the United States Naval Academy. Since he was too young, at age 16, to be admitted to the Naval Academy, the Navy sent him to a prep school, the Admiral Farragut Academy, for a year. While at the Farragut Academy, he was administered an IQ test on which he registered an IQ of 145. In 1941, Shepard was finally granted entry into the Naval Academy, that had shortened its four-year program to three years on account of World War II. Consequently, he graduated on June 6, 1944 (instead of 1945).
In August 1944, following a month of classroom instruction on aviation, Shepard was assigned to the USS Cogswell, a large naval destroyer. His time on the USS Cogswell was fraught with perilous forays across the Pacific to rescue US sailors from ships sunk by Japanese submarines. During that period, the Cogswell faced hazardous weather conditions along with frequent attacks from above by kamikazes and threats from below by Japanese submarines. Alan Shepard served on the USS Cogswell as the gunnery officer on the ship’s bow during the fierce Battle of Okinawa. The USS Cogswell subsequently played a strong role in the bombardments of Japan that ultimately led to the surrender of Japan in September 1945.
In January 1946, World War II was fading into distant memory and Shepard began basic flight training at the Navel Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas. From there, he attended the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida where he achieved six perfect landings on the USS Saipan, earning him his naval aviator wings. During the Korean War, Alan served two tours on the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany, but the Korean Amistice Agreement terminated conflict in July, 1953 and Shepard did not become involved in the conflict.
After the Korean War, Shepard became a test pilot, flying various high-speed aircraft and setting several records for altitude and speed. He flight-tested a variety of experimental aircraft including the McDonnell F3H Demon, the Vought F-8 Crusader, the Douglas F4D Skyray, and the Grumman F-11 Tiger. When he tested the Vought F7U Cutlass, he found that it sometimes went into an inverted spin during a snap roll and he was forced to eject. He gave it an unfavorable report. In 1957, when he was the project test pilot on the Douglas FSD Skylancer he gave it an unfavorable report also, and the Navy canceled orders for it, buying the F8U instead. Using his highly tuned insights into aircraft performance, Alan Shepard was able to help the Navy discover the validity and safety of various aircraft designs. When he graduated in 1957, he became an Aircraft Readiness Officer on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet, having logged more than 3,600 hours of flying time, including 1,700 hours in jets.
When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957, President Eisenhower responded with an announcement of Nasa’s Project Mercury dedicated to launching a man into space orbit. In 1959, Shepard was selected from a group of over 500 graduates of test pilot schools as one of seven astronauts for this first US manned spaceflight program. On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard made history when he became the first American and second human (after Yuri Gagarin of the USSR) to enter space. The Freedom 7 spacecraft completed its 15-minute suborbital flight, reaching an altitude of 116 miles and a speed of 5,134 miles per hour, before its final splashdown into the Atlantic Ocean.
Shepard was declared a national hero and honored with ticker-tape parades in New York, Washington and Los Angeles. On May 8, 1961 Alan Bartlett Shepard was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. When reporters asked him what he had been thinking just before liftoff, he responded, “The fact that every part of this ship was built by the lowest bidder.”
Shepard faced health issues related to an inner ear condition known as Ménière’s disease that temporarily grounded him from spaceflight. However, after a successful medical procedure, he returned to space on January 31, 1971, as the commander of the Apollo 14 mission, and became the fifth person to walk on the Moon. While on the moon, Shepard delighted golfers throughout the world by hitting a golf ball on the lunar surface, to showcase the advantages of reduced gravity.
In 1974, Shepard retired from the Navy and NASA with the rank of Rear Admiral. He went on to work in the private sector in a variety of roles as a businessman and consultant, serving on several corporate boards. Through astute investments in banking and real estate, he was able to accumulate substantial wealth. Tom Wolfe’s book, The Right Stuff, published in 1979, featured Shepard and other US test pilots in analysis of how astronauts are selected. A film version was published in 1983. In 1994, Alan Shepard co-authored a book, titled Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America’s Race to the Moon, that was subsequently presented as a TV miniseries.
Tragically, in 1996, Shepard was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. He died at age 74 in Pebble Beach, California on July 21, 1998–exactly 29 years to the day that Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon. Alan’s widow, Louise, died of a heart attack 35 days later. They had been married for 53 years.
