Alan Shepard, Essay Example

Alan Shepard

Alan Sheppard was the first American astronaut who went in space. He was among the first seven astronauts team who walked on the moon. He was appointed as chief of the Astronaut office from 1963-1969. On 25 August, 1971, he promoted to the rank of Captain to Rear Admiral. He took the retirement from the NASA and the United Sates Navy in 1974 (Alan Shepard, 2011). He died in the age of 74 (Wilford, 1998)

Early Life

Alan Shepard was born on November 18, 1923 in Derry, New Hampshire. His father was Lieutenant Colonel Alan B. Shepard. He was always fond of aircrafts and planes. He graduated in 1941 from Admiral Farragut Academy.

During the World War II, he worked on the naval ship. However, after the world war, he went to school and became test pilot. The duty of test pilot was to test new aircraft and make sure that the aircrafts are safe for the combat pilots.  In April 1959, he became the astronaut. In 1961, Alan Shepard was the second man and first American who walked on the moon (Alan Shepard, 1998)

Early Career

Naval career of Alan Sheppard started after graduation from the US naval academy in engineering in 1944. He received his Naval Aviator wings in 1947. He attended US Naval Test Pilot School in 1950 and participated in flight test work. He had the flight test of different aircrafts in his life like F2H-3 Banshee, F3H Demon, F4D Skyray, F8U Crusa0der, F11F Tiger, F5D skylancer and last five months at Patuxent. His flying time0 is more than 8000 hours and 37000 hours in jet aircraft.

Project Mercury

This was the first United State project regarding the human space flight under the guidance of NASA. The major goal of this project was to putting the human in an orbit around the earth and before the Soviet Union. Alan Shepard was the first American in space in suborbital the flight after the Yuri Gagarin of Soviet Union (Wall, 2011). In 1959, Sheppard was selected as an astronaut after passing series of psychological and physical tests. He was selected as the first American manned mission for space. He was the pilot of Freedom 7 mission for space in 1961 and became second person and first American to travel into space. This launch was seen live on TV around the world. In 1963, Shepard pilot the Mercury-Atlas 10 Freedom 7-II. He was also a backup pilot for the Mercury-Atlas 9 mission (Who was Alan Shapard, 2011). He was the command pilot of project Germinimission, the first manned mission.

Apollo 14 Mission

Shepard was given the designation of Chief of the Astronaut Officer whose responsibility is to coordinate, monitor, control and schedule all the activities related to NASA astronaut in 1969. Shepard made the second visit to space at the age of 47 in Apollo 14. This was the USA third lunar landing mission launched from Jan 31 to Feb 9, 1971. Alan was appointed as commander of this mission. It was the third team of astronauts who landed on the moon. This mission made history to become Alan Shepard as an oldest astronaut who walked on moon. Under the commandment of Alan, the mission got successful (Apollo 14 Mission, n.d.). He was promoted to Rear Admiral both from Navy and NASA on August 1, 1974.

Life after Retirement

After he left NASA he served in many corporations as board members. He also published a book named Moon Shot: The inside Story of America Race to the Moon (Moonshot, n.d.). He was highly honored and awarded a lot throughout his career.

References

Alan Shepard. (1998, July 23). Retrieved April 17, 2014, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/5796131/Alan-Shepard.html

Alan Shepard. (2011, May). Retrieved April 17, 2014, from http://www.nasa.gov: http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/who-was-alan-shepard-k4.html#.U0-mb_QW2-A

Apollo 14 Mission. (n.d.). Retrieved from Luner Science and Planetry Institute: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_14/

Moonshot. (n.d.). Retrieved from goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1142063.Moon_Shot

Wall, M. (2011, March 5). Alan Shepard’s Space Race. Retrieved April 17, 2014, from http://www.space.com: http://www.space.com/11578-nasa-alan-shepard-space-race-human-spaceflight.html

Who was Alan Shapard. (2011, May 11). Retrieved from NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/who-was-alan-shepard-k4.html#.U0-_ftxdWAU

Wilford, J. n. (1998, July 23). Alan B. Shepard death. Retrieved April 17, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1118.html