Apollo 14
February 6, 1971
At the end of the second moonwalk, Alan Shepard pulled a makeshift 6-iron head from his suit pocket, attached it to a sample-collection rod, and hit two golf balls on the Moon. He shanked the first one. He caught the second one clean. "Miles and miles," he said. I laughed…
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Apollo 14
February 5, 1971
Alan Shepard landed on the Moon today. The first American in space — Freedom 7, fifteen minutes, May 1961 — landed on another world at Fra Mauro. He is forty-seven years old. He waited ten years for this. His first words on the surface: "It's been a long way, but…
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May 5, 1961
He went. He came back. He was in space for fifteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds, and the whole country stopped to watch.
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Mercury
May 5, 1961
An American is in space. Alan Shepard, Navy Commander and test pilot, rode Freedom 7 to the edge of space and back this morning. Fifteen minutes and twenty-two seconds. It wasn't an orbit — the Soviets did that weeks ago — but it was something. It was ours.
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