Alan Shepard, the first American to fly in space and one of only 12 US astronauts to walk on the moon, died late Tuesday at a hospital in California. He was 74. In 1961, Shepard flew a 15 minute sub-orbital flight on a redstone rocket to become the first American in space. Three weeks later President Kennedy announced that the US would put a man on the Moon before the decade was out. Shepard himself became a lunar astronaut with the launch of Apollo 14 in 1971. He was also one of the original seven Mercury astronauts picked by NASA to go into space.
Shepard was born in East Derry, New Hampshire, on November 18, 1923, and received a Bachelor of Science degree from the US Naval Academy in 1944. Before joining NASA, he flew as a Navy pilot. Shepard features in one of the most memorable images from the US space programme – he was the first golfer to play with a lunar handicap. Unfortunately the images of an astronaut playing golf on the Moon increased pressure on NASA to cut back the Apollo programme. Shepard later headed NASA’s astronaut office before retiring in 1974. Afterwards he became president of the Mercury Seven Foundation, a charity that awards science and engineering scholarships.
