Scrapbook 1: May 1961 — Alan Shepard

U.S. JUMPING WITH JOY

From JOHN EDWARDS, New York, Friday

THE whole of America is hopping with happiness over Commander Shepard’s Space flight. There is singing in the streets. There is joy and jubilation in millions of homes.

Hero Shepard has set the country glowing with his ride in a Redstone rocket.

When he was blasted off from the pad at Cape Canaveral the hearts of all Americans beat faster.

In New York taxis pulled into the kerbs to listen to radio commentaries.

Television sets were switched on in showroom windows. Pedestrians jammed the pavements to get a view.

Business in the skyscraper office blocks slowed to nothing. Everybody jostled for position at radio or television.

It was the same in Washington. President Jack Kennedy and his family and top advisers watched, too.

Behind the drawn curtains in a little house in Virginia Beach—500 miles from the launching site—the Spaceman’s wife, Mrs. Louise Shepard, watched the event anxiously

When Commander Shepard was recovered safely she flung her arms into the air and said: “It was just wonderful, wonderful. I knew, I knew from the minute the rocket went up he was going to be all right. I just wiped away the tears.”

When the rescue helicopter planted hero Shepard on the deck of the carrier there was a phone call waiting for him.

It was the President.

Mr. Kennedy congratulated Commander Shepard and asked him how he felt. Shepard replied: “Everything worked just about perfectly.”

Wonderful!

Mrs. Louise Shepard, wife of America’s Spaceman, laughs with joy and relief yesterday.

“It’s just wonderful, wonderful, wonderful,” she said at her home at Virginia Beach, Virginia.

In Moscow last night, Tass, the official Russian news agency, said that Shepard’s flight “cannot be compared” with the flight of Yuri Gagarin, Russia’s first man in Space.

Shepard travelled only 302 miles in fifteen minutes, said Tass, while Gagarin went right around the earth, and his flight took 108 minutes.

Tass said “Yuri Gagarin was in a state of weightlessness during the entire time his spaceship was in orbit but the American astronaut was in this state for only several minutes.”

Moscow Radio gave only the bare facts of Shepard’s flight in a news broadcast.

IT was a great day for “steam” radio. . . . British audiences had no direct TV link in Cape Canaveral. But the BBC’s on-the-spot sound broadcast brought listeners all the drama and thrills of Alan Shepard’s epoch-making venture into Space.

The tension was terrific as take-off time approached. Then just three minutes after take-off an American commentator announced excitedly:

“Alan Shepard is now America’s first man in Space. He’s made it.”

In the background, a Space capsule radio monitor reported the Astronaut’s first reaction: “What a beautiful view.”

FULLY fit—that was the doctors’ verdict last night on American Space hero, Commander Alan Shepard, after they had examined him at a base in the Bahamas.

One of the doctors, Colonel William Douglas, said he did not think further tests would show the astronaut had suffered any ill effects.

A psychiatrist, Dr. George Ruff, who also examined Shepard, said he was “pleased and somewhat amazed” that the Space man was in “such good shape.”

Before he took off on his triumphant journey into Space, Shepard told scientists at the launching pad:

“Heck, I want to be the first just because I want to be first.

“I guess it’s American to want to be first in things.

“That just about sums it up for me.”

AMERICA’S first man in Space and hero No. 1, Naval Commander Alan Shepard, 37, thought at one time that he would not be given the chance to make history for his country.

For when invitations were sent out by the Government asking for Space volunteers, Commander Shepard did not get a letter.

He was on the original list of 110 Servicemen who were to be asked to volunteer.

But his invitation was MISLAID.

Shepard was crestfallen. He believed his name had been taken off the list.

FOUND

Then the letter was found—and sent off. Shepard’s reply: “Yes, I’ll volunteer.”

After the code name “Project Mercury” had been given to America’s plans for manned Space flight, the serious business of selecting a small seven-man Space team began.

Gradually the list was whittled down to the seven men—among them Commander Shepard.

Their astronaut training involved as much brain work as physical preparation.

In addition to being whirled, swung and jerked under conditions likely to be encountered in Spaceflight, they had to go to “school” again.

In February this year, the three “most suitable” members of the seven-man team were told that America’s first astronaut would be one of them.

Again Shepard won his way to the VIP list.

Finally, as the world knows, non-smoking, family man Shepard was told: “You will be America’s first Spaceman.”

During his training Shepard, son of a retired Army colonel, was paid about £80 a week.

For his fifteen-minute flight into Space he was paid nothing extra.

But the U.S. Government took out a £5,500 insurance policy on him for the flight and a magazine has bought Shepard’s story. He will receive £25,000.

Muscular, blue-eyed Shepard was born in East Derry, New Hampshire, and began his service career at Annapolis Naval Academy.

In World War II he served aboard a destroyer in the Pacific and later became a Navy test pilot.

All his life he has loved speed and thrills.

Most of his spare time he spends driving fast sports cars or swishing over the surf in water skis.

When he first began water ski-ing Shepard used two skis, then only one. Finally, he dispensed with skis altogether, and hunted around for a boat fast enough to pull him across the water on his BARE FEET.

A “cool, calm guy” and “very bright” is how Shepard’s colleagues describe him.

Commander Shepard’s triumph yesterday has been the “shot in the arm” that America’s Space programme badly needed.

While the Russians were making steady progress with their manned Space plans, the Americans were having frequent failures.

AMERICA has put HER man triumphantly into Space and brought him back alive.

Not secretly, like the Russians, but in the full glare of publicity for the whole world to see and cheer—or to know if the bid failed.

That took courage. The Mirror salutes this great American achievement . . . and the new Spaceman who has found fame. Here’s to a brave man—American astronaut Alan Shepard!

From JOHN EDWARDS, New York, Friday

AFTER her long, lonely wait for blast-off time, Louise Shepard, wife of Commander Alan Shepard, the West’s first Spaceman, settled down tonight to another wait.

For officials of Project Mercury—the Space flight code name—told her: “It may be two days before you can speak to Alan.

“He must complete his medical check first.”

ISOLATED

Spaceman Shepard is on Grand Bahama Island. Wife Louise, 34, waits in their trim little home at Virginia Beach, 1,000 miles away.

Tonight she said: “I thought I would have been able to call Alan right away.

“But he is still isolated with the medics.”

Mrs. Shepard watched her husband’s epic flight on television.

When he had been safely landed on the pick-up aircraft carrier, she said: “It was just wonderful! Wonderful!

“I knew from the minute the rocket went up he was going to be all right.”

Asked if she would like to see her hero husband orbit the Earth like Russia’s Yuri Gagarin, she said: “Yes, I would since he wants it so badly. This is just a baby step.”

TONIGHT all America is hopping with happiness over the flight. There’s joy in the homes; singing in the streets.

At Derry, New Hampshire, crowds cheered the Spaceman’s parents as they drove in procession through their home town.

At blast-off time this morning millions were glued to television screens and radios.

Taxi drivers pulled in to the kerbside to hear the live broadcast. Business stopped in skyscraper office blocks while workers clustered around TV sets.