Alan Shepard Quotes

Alan Shepard was an American astronaut and one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts selected by NASA. He became the first American to travel into space aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft in 1961. Shepard's pioneering spaceflight paved the way for future space exploration and established him as a national hero.

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.

I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after ... -Alan Shepard

I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after all.

Discovering the context

This quote expresses a realization or acceptance that one may have become a part of history due to their actions, achievements, or contributions. It implies a recognition of one's potential impact on the course of events or the collective memory of a specific period.

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.

I'd like to say I was smart enough to finish six grades in five years, but I think perhaps the teacher was just glad to get rid of me.

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.

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.

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.

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.

But when I was selected, after my very first tour of squadron duty, to become one of the youngest candidates for the test pilot school, I began to realize, maybe you are a little bit better.

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.

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.

You may not have any extra talent, but maybe you are just paying more attention to what you are doing.

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.

They say any landing you can walk away from is a g... -Alan Shepard

They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one.

Discovering the context

This quote humorously suggests that any landing, even if it may not be entirely smooth or ideal, is considered satisfactory as long as the individuals involved can safely walk away from it, emphasizing the importance of a safe return.

Of course, in our grade school, in those days, there were no organized sports at all. We just went out and ran around the school yard for recess.

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.

Whether you are an astronomer or a life scientist, geophysicist, or a pilot, you've got to be there because you believe you are good in your field, and you can contribute, not because you are going to get a lot of fame or whatever when you get back.

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.

Obviously I was challenged by becoming a Naval aviator, by landing aboard aircraft carriers and so on.