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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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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.
Firsts
Book
First
Pages
Books
History
Ends
America
Wanted

More quotes by Alan Shepard

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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.
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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Got more dirt than ball. Here we go again.
Alan Shepard
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Al is on the surface. And it's been a long way, but we're here.
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.
Alan Shepard
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I woke up an hour before I was supposed to, and started going over the mental checklist: where do I go from here, what do I do? I don't remember eating anything at all, just going through the physical, getting into the suit. We practiced that so much, it was all rote.
Alan Shepard
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You know, being a test pilot isn't always the healthiest business in the world.
Alan Shepard
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Miles and miles and miles.
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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When I first looked back at the Earth, standing on the Moon I cried
Alan Shepard
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I didn't mind studying. Obviously math and the physical science subjects interested me more than some of the more artistic subjects, but I think I was a pretty good student.
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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Roger, liftoff, and the clock is started.
Alan Shepard
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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.
Alan Shepard
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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.
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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I can hit it farther on the moon. But actually, my swing is better here on Earth.
Alan Shepard
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I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after all.
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