He easily passed the entrance exam to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1940, but at sixteen was too young to enter that year. Because World War II was already raging in Europe, his father wanted him to join the Army. Shepard graduated from Pinkerton Academy in 1940. The following year he began cycling to Manchester Airfield, where he would do odd jobs in exchange for the occasional ride in an airplane or informal flying lesson. Fascinated by flight, he created a model airplane club at the academy, and his Christmas present in 1938 was a flight in a Douglas DC-3. In 1936, he went to the Pinkerton Academy, a private school in Derry that his father had attended and where his grandfather had been a trustee. He achieved the Boy Scouts of America rank of First Class Scout. Shepard attended Adams School in Derry, where his academic performance impressed his teachers he skipped the sixth grade, and proceeded to middle school at Oak Street School in Derry, where he skipped the eighth grade. He remained in the National Guard between the wars, and was recalled to active duty during World War II, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Bart joined the National Guard in 1915 and served in France with the American Expeditionary Force during World War I. Alan Bartlett Shepard Sr., known as Bart, worked in the Derry National Bank, owned by Shepard's grandfather. He was related to Scottish emigrants from Berneray in the Outer Hebrides, through the Shepard line. He was one of many famous descendants of Mayflower passenger Richard Warren. He had a younger sister, Pauline, who was known as Polly. and Pauline Renza Shepard ( née Emerson). was born on November 18, 1923, at 64 Hampstead Road in Derry, New Hampshire, to Alan Bartlett Shepard Sr. He was promoted to rear admiral on August 25, 1971, the first astronaut to reach that rank.Īlan Bartlett Shepard Jr. Shepard was Chief of the Astronaut Office from November 1963 to August 1969 (the approximate period of his grounding), and from June 1971 until his retirement from the United States Navy and NASA on August 1, 1974. During the mission, he hit two golf balls on the lunar surface. At age 47, he became the fifth, the oldest, and the only one of the Mercury Seven astronauts to walk on the Moon. This was surgically corrected in 1968, and in 1971, Shepard commanded the Apollo 14 mission, piloting the Apollo Lunar Module Antares. Shepard was designated as the commander of the first crewed Project Gemini mission, but was grounded in October 1963 due to Ménière's disease, an inner-ear ailment that caused episodes of extreme dizziness and nausea. He named Mercury Spacecraft 15B Freedom 7 II in honor of his first spacecraft, but the mission was canceled. In the final stages of Project Mercury, Shepard was scheduled to pilot the Mercury-Atlas 10 (MA-10), which was planned as a three-day mission. He became the second person, and the first American, to travel into space, and the first space traveler to manually control the orientation of his craft. His craft entered space, but was not capable of achieving orbit. He was selected as one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts in 1959, and in May 1961 he made the first crewed Project Mercury flight, Mercury-Redstone 3, in a spacecraft he named Freedom 7. He became a naval aviator in 1946, and a test pilot in 1950. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel into space and, in 1971, he became the fifth and oldest person to walk on the Moon at age 47.Ī graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Shepard saw action with the surface navy during World War II. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman.
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