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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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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.
Carrier
Naval
Aircraft
Landing
Challenged
Navy
Carriers
Obviously
Aboard
Becoming
Aviator
More quotes by Alan Shepard
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.
Alan Shepard
We also knew it would be difficult, because of the financial condition of the family, for me to go to college.
Alan Shepard
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
Why don't you fix your little problem and light this candle?
Alan Shepard
Roger, liftoff, and the clock is started.
Alan Shepard
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.
Alan Shepard
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
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
Then I thought, with the same clubhead speed, the ball's going to go at least six times as far. There's absolutely no drag, so if you do happen to spin it, it won't slice or hook 'cause there's no atmosphere to make it turn.
Alan Shepard
I think about the personal accomplishment, but there's more of a sense of the grand achievement by all the people who could put this man on the moon.
Alan Shepard
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.
Alan Shepard
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.
Alan Shepard
You know, being a test pilot isn't always the healthiest business in the world.
Alan Shepard
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
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.
Alan Shepard
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
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
Miles and miles and miles.
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.
Alan Shepard
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.
Alan Shepard
