Quote

I think first of all you have to be there for the right reason.

Alan Shepard

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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.
First
Right
Think
Thinking
Reason
Firsts

More quotes by Alan Shepard

Image
Al is on the surface. And it's been a long way, but we're here.
Alan Shepard
Image
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.
Alan Shepard
Image
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
Image
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.
Alan Shepard
Image
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
Image
The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder.
Alan Shepard
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I can hit it farther on the moon. But actually, my swing is better here on Earth.
Alan Shepard
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
We also knew it would be difficult, because of the financial condition of the family, for me to go to college.
Alan Shepard
Image
We need a continuing presence in space.
Alan Shepard
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after all.
Alan Shepard
Image
There's no question that all the generations got excited about the first flights, with Kennedy's inspiration to go to the moon, leaving the planet for the first time, and fortunately coming back.
Alan Shepard