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The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder.

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.
Every
Bidder
Ship
Ships
Lows
Built
Fact
Facts
Part

More quotes by 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.
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The suit was so clumsy, being pressurized, it was impossible to get two hands comfortably on the handle and it's impossible to make any kind of a turn. It was kind of a one-handed chili-dip.
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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.
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Got more dirt than ball. Here we go again.
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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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Why don't you light that candle ?
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It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.
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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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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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Miles and miles and miles.
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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When I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon I cried
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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Obviously I was challenged by becoming a Naval aviator, by landing aboard aircraft carriers and so on.
Alan Shepard