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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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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.
Glory
Effectively
Talent
Operation
Ability
Applied
History
Operations
Book
Page
Believe
Recognition
Pages
Fame
Spacecraft

More quotes by Alan Shepard

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You know, being a test pilot isn't always the healthiest business in the world.
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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.
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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.
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I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after all.
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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
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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.
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So everything turned out fine, and we were given the opportunity to go to Washington and be briefed on the project of man in space, and given the opportunity to choose whether we wanted to get involved or not.
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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.
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Al is on the surface. And it's been a long way, but we're here.
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The excitement really didn't start to build until the trailer - which was carrying me, with a space suit with ventilation and all that sort of stuff - pulled up to the launch pad.
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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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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.
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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.
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I can hit it farther on the moon. But actually, my swing is better here on Earth.
Alan Shepard
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Roger, liftoff, and the clock is started.
Alan Shepard
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Why don't you fix your little problem and light this candle?
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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I guess those of us who have been with NASA kind of understand the tremendous excitement and thrills and celebrations and national pride that went with the Apollo program is just something you're not going to create again, probably until we go to Mars.
Alan Shepard
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Miles and miles and miles.
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I know you're all saying I can go to the moon but I can't find Pasadena.
Alan Shepard