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- JagPop, on 07/14/2009, -1/+14I met Alan Shepard once, in March 1992, after entering a food service area in a fancy Boston hotel. The area itself wasn't fancy, a cafeteria type arrangement. Outside and separated from the service area was a nice court area with tables for dining.
I entered the food service area by myself and reached for a tray. The strongest memory I have was that my peripheral vision recognized Alan Shepard in a nanosecond. He was at the extreme fuzzy edge of my peripheral vision; yet his silhouette was grabbed by my subconscious and my head **snapped** around in a reflex so that I stared at him directly. Not exactly nonchalant of me :) Oh, well.
It was just the two of us in the food area, plus some out-of-sight cashier. He joined my stare while my conscious mind sorted out "Carpenter? Shepard? Carpenter? Shepard?" Alan Shepard..."from the ground up" - JFK. I was nine years old when Kennedy dropped Shepard's medal while trying to pin it on him, recovering immediately with a perfect quip.
Nine years old. You can imagine the total immersion in hero worship for our first astronaut.
There he was, thirty plus years later. He was about eighteen feet away and it was time to offer my hand or keep walking. He made an ever so slight motion to one side which I read as a "tell" that he would prefer privacy. It must be sweet and sour to live decades as a hero. In his home town I'll bet he couldn't run a simple errand without drawing a crowd. I have always appreciated this fact about *stars* and here he was in Boston, hopefully enjoying a degree of anonymity. (I later observed this anonymity from a different angle).
So I walked on.
Later, in the same hotel, I observed him and his small party of four standing near the bottom of a heavily populated down escalator. The party seemed cheery about something and I speculated that they were thrilled by being able to be highly visible to a lot of people, yet their privacy was preserved, no one - no one - was showing a hint of recognition.
I have replayed the scene in the cafeteria area many times over the years. I am glad I respected his privacy but it would have been an amazing thrill and honor - what would have been one more handshake? - striderx, on 07/14/2009, -0/+11Second man into space? Yes... First American into space? Yes again... Second man into orbit? Nope, not even close. After Gagarin's first flight, which was also orbital, America's first two flight's were 15 minute suborbital balistic flights by Shepard and Grissom. The next orbital flyer wasn't even an American. It was another Russian - Titov. He spent a whole day in space! The first American to orbit didn't come until Glenn nearly a year after Gagarin's flight. Many people mistakenly attribute Glenn's flight to Shepard - and vice versa. Shepard didn't get to orbit the earth until ten years later when he did it during the early phases of Apollo 14 as they readied their craft for LOI (lunar orbit insertion).
Don't get me wrong though. Shepard was a great astronaut and a heck of a brave man to ride those early rockets. But let's keep the story accurate.
BTW Jagpop, I'd have loved to have been in your shoes. And you couldn't keep me from asking to shake his hand! - bigbadgoat, on 07/14/2009, -1/+12He willingly strapped himself to a controlled bomb where the chance of failure was about 50/50 at best for no other reason than to push the limits of mankind's achievements and add to our pool of knowledge.
He risked his life for the good of mankind, sounds like a hero to me. - bigbadgoat, on 07/14/2009, -0/+7It's every astronaut of the space race you ***** troll.
- AndrewDB, on 07/14/2009, -1/+6Bigbadgoat, did you expect anything less than trolling from a Presbyterian?
Just bury, block, and move on. - spookyttws, on 07/14/2009, -0/+3The look on his wife's face she finally receives the call that Shepard is alive is amazing. In fact (had I been alive in 1969) I would have had that same expression when witnessing the moon landing. Sadly, my generation has much less interest in actual practical space flight. Sure Science Fiction has gone mainstream, but practical space exploration (at least on the engineering side) has waned.
Luckily, my sister is an Astrophysicist and now works for the Government so she regularly excites me with geek stories about projects they're working on that have fantastic possibilities, yet only work in very small (microscopic) models. It's still enough to keep me interested.
If nothing else, I hear Helium-3 can solve our energy crisis and the Moon is plentiful. I'll be first in line to sign up for my 3 year tour once the moon base is complete. - motbob, on 07/14/2009, -0/+2You did the right thing.
- tdclark23, on 07/14/2009, -0/+2He also wasn't the "second human to fly into Earth's orbit". We all live in Earth's orbit and didn't have to fly to get here. Now "to orbit the Earth" is what he was trying to say, but that is also wrong as striderx says above.
- JagPop, on 07/14/2009, -0/+2I was doing "dish-duty" at a summer camp when they launched for the moon. There were three of us in the dishwashing room at the time and I clearly remember one of the others saying that we would always remember where we were - so, true. I was a junior councilor that summer and when the first pictures were to be beamed from the moon it was evening. Someone had gotten hold of a television and stuck it in the window of one of the cabins. Tons of campers sat cramped together on a hill trying to make out the image on the black and white tv. I sat fairly close but it was difficult to sort out exactly what we were seeing - like shadow images on a wall. Didn't matter so much that the images were lousy we felt we were in touch with the historical moment.
- ericwisner, on 07/14/2009, -0/+1These guys were all heroes to me when I was in elementary school. I'm glad to have seen this essay. They were in life then where I am now. It makes them less like heroes and more like real people whose profound courage and tenacity changed the nation.
- JagPop, on 07/15/2009, -0/+1Seemingly true. It is disconcerting, as though our generation were exiting through a door.
Who remembers Sgt York? To whom does his name kindle a spark?
Charles Lindbergh - I struggled to spell his name correctly.
I have long thought that five hundred years from now the average American would have barely three names at the tip of their tongue from our era and one of them would be Neil Armstrong. I am not so sure about that now. - dtele, on 07/21/2009, -0/+1I don't think he actually went into orbit... it was an up / down flight !
- damage78, on 07/14/2009, -0/+1He has the right stuff.
- cosworth99, on 07/14/2009, -0/+1Being a fan of the Mercury 7, The Right Stuff, Space Travel etc. - I was astonished to see I had not seen most of these photos. What a great way to start my day. Thank you sir. Dugggggg.
- brim4brim, on 07/14/2009, -0/+1That rocked, he seemed to have a real personality which is so much better than a lot of the so called idols of today that are just engineered by marketing machines.
- TheCynic, on 07/19/2009, -0/+1Great pics
- JagPop, on 07/14/2009, -0/+1"And you couldn't keep me from asking to shake his hand!"
I alternate between kicking myself and thinking I did the right thing.
Could I have sensed the *history* in his vibe as I grasped his hand? He stood at the crossroads to the future. - skipvt, on 07/14/2009, -0/+1That's a pretty cool story. I'm guessing from the comments that you needed to have grown up during that time to realize what a big deal that was and how to our generation they were heroes.
- btsgreg, on 07/16/2009, -0/+1Absolutely incredible, loved the pictures - DUGG!
- lusenok2, on 07/15/2009, -1/+1Second man in space? Not interesting....
- intrepidia, on 07/14/2009, -0/+0Hopefully we can find someone to do the Moon walk rather than the moonwalk to worship...
- gfelstein55, on 07/16/2009, -0/+0Interesting!! May I know about the first American who traveled to space?
- SSDrunks, on 07/14/2009, -1/+0I would recommend "From the Earth to the Moon" for more on Shep if you haven't watched it before. While some people in this thread would overlook the contribution his flight made to global space travel as a whole, it can't be overestimated as to its value to the American program. If he failed, that might have been it. The US couldn't simply cover up dead astronauts like the Soviets likely did.
- syntaxgs, on 07/14/2009, -4/+2it bad that he had too die =(
- bigbadgoat, on 07/14/2009, -3/+1The job a chimp can do?
Because a chimp would be fully aware of the risk involved?
Because a chimp can provide the same feedback?
Because a chimp would be able to react as well in the case of an emergency?
*****, why bother sending humans in space at all? We can just get chimps to do it. It's just as good! lol. - Presbyterian, on 07/14/2009, -6/+1Jesus Christ, I was just pointing out he wasn't the first man in Space.
- skunkman62, on 07/14/2009, -6/+1i agree with presbyterian. so man does a job a chimp can do and he is called a hero. come on!
- Presbyterian, on 07/14/2009, -11/+2Huh?.
I think you're confusing this guy with Yuri Gagarin.He was the one who did those things. - Presbyterian, on 07/14/2009, -13/+0"It must be sweet and sour to live decades as a hero."
No offense but really, Hero?.Come on.
He went into Space. He wasn't exactly a humanitarian.
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