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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.

Alan Shepard

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Alan Shepard
Age: 74 †
Born: 1923
Born: November 18
Died: 1998
Died: July 22
Aircraft Pilot
Astronaut
Entrepreneur
Naval Officer
United States Naval Aviator
Derry
New Hampshire
Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr.
Smart
Like
Perhaps
Teacher
Five
Enough
Grades
Finish
Years
Six
Think
Glad
Thinking

More quotes by Alan Shepard

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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.
Alan Shepard
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Why don't you fix your little problem and light this candle?
Alan Shepard
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Got more dirt than ball. Here we go again.
Alan Shepard
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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.
Alan Shepard
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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.
Alan Shepard
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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.
Alan Shepard
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We also knew it would be difficult, because of the financial condition of the family, for me to go to college.
Alan Shepard
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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.
Alan Shepard
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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.
Alan Shepard
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I just wanted to be the first one to fly for America, not because I'd end up in the pages of history books.
Alan Shepard
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I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after all.
Alan Shepard
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The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder.
Alan Shepard
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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.
Alan Shepard
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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.
Alan Shepard
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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.
Alan Shepard
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Obviously I was challenged by becoming a Naval aviator, by landing aboard aircraft carriers and so on.
Alan Shepard
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We had some adverse conditions in the '60s, in the '70s and the '80s. The agency has risen above that in the past and will rise above that again.
Alan Shepard
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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.
Alan Shepard
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When I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon I cried
Alan Shepard
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We need a continuing presence in space.
Alan Shepard