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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

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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.
Become
Test
School
Began
Squadron
Littles
Tests
Youngest
Better
Realize
Selected
Little
Duty
Pilot
Firsts
Realizing
Pilots
First
Bits
Tour
Maybe
Candidates

More quotes by 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 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
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On the periscope . . . . What a beautiful view. Cloud cover over Florida - three to four tenths near the eastern coast. Obscured up to Hatteras . . . I can see [lake] Okeechobee. Identify Andros Island. Identify the reefs.
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Al is on the surface. And it's been a long way, but we're here.
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We need a continuing presence in space.
Alan Shepard
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You may not have any extra talent, but maybe you are just paying more attention to what you are doing.
Alan Shepard
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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
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I realized up there that our planet is not infinite. It's fragile. That may not be obvious to a lot of folks, and it's tough that people are fighting each other here on Earth instead of trying to get together and live on this planet. We look pretty vulnerable in the darkness of space.
Alan Shepard
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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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Later, in the early teens, I used to ride my bike every Saturday morning to the nearest airport, ten miles away, push airplanes in and out of the hangars, and clean up the hangars.
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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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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When I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon I cried
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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I think first of all you have to be there for the right reason.
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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The same way people are now paying a couple thousand dollars to fly to other parts of the world, people will be paying $50,000 to spend a weekend on a space station.
Alan Shepard
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Because of the suit I was wearing, I couldn't make a good pivot on the swing. And I had to hit the ball with one hand.
Alan Shepard
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Miles and miles and miles.
Alan Shepard