Oral History: Alan Shepard 

It’s very sad this seems to have so few views as it’s such a great look into America’s early manned space program from someone who should know.

This guy was my hero when he took that first U.S. suborbital flight in the Mercury space capsule. And then later, after overcoming a medical problem, walked on the moon in the Apollo 14 mission. He had a mischievous fun side. The only person to ever hit a golf ball on the moon. Watching this whole thing is a wonderfully informative experience. He was there with first hand accounts and answers to so many good questions. Alan Shephard definitely had the "Right Stuff". I had no idea he died of leukemia only five months later.

im 13 minutes in, this is already one of the greatest interviews of an astronaut.

First time I’ve listened to an Al Shepherd interview. Thoroughly enjoyable.

It's like watching "The Right Stuff" and "From the earth to the moon", but from the best point of view :) Knowing that he would have chosen to land anyway, even if this radar-bug-thing had not been fixed, is an awesome anecdote ! Thanks for this document, and my respects to Alan Shepard.

I'm about to turn 76 and remember Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 flight very well. I was in 8th grade and our teacher brought in a portable radio so we could listen to the launch. Very memorable day. I had 3 favorite astronauts and Shepard was one along with John Glenn, and Jim Lovell. I would have given alot to have had just a short 5 minute or so conversation with Alan Shepard. These guys in the early days had some major cojones to get locked into those tiny little capsules and ride the rocket.

This is Al Shepard in his last months of life. He died in July, 1998, and his wife Louise died in August.

Great to hear this from the legends mouth.

Alan Shepard, The greatest of the Astronauts! I will always have this image in my mind of him stepping out of the launch van in front of his rocket and he paused and looked up at the craft while shielding his eyes from the bright Florida sun. Rest in peace sir!

Astonishing documentary. Congratulations!!!!

This was fantastic, i cant thank you enough.❤

This dude was and always was…a rockstar. Of the seven Mercury Astronauts, he was chosen the best for mission 1. Without his ear problems, he was prime crew on Apollo 1. He landed on the moon..and played golf. Legend.

There was zero doubt Shepard would stick the landing.

Although from Mitchell’s perspective, the line of “you’ll never know” never happened, this is still a marvelous oral history especially considering Shepard was literally a dying man he may not have had the strength to give a more thorough interview so this is truly special

Having connections gets you on the moon at 47yrs old with medical disqualification. But he did good only with Edgar’s expertise. Al was a very qualified but not experienced as other commanders.

Talking about Deke Slayton's heart condition; an Atrial Fibrilation, a type of arrithmya, Alan is right: it is an episodic diseasa that usually begins by short episodes interspersed with normal rythm. It is usually secondary to another heart disease, as a valvule failure or a long-term hypertensive disease. However in the case of Deke, it was a primary Atrial Fibrilation; that is, there was no underlying heart disease. That's not frequent, but seldom happens and generally corresponds to a congenital anomalous disposition of the pacemarker tissues in the heart. But, the problem is that being a switch-on switch-off disease; that is, only God knows when the abnormal rythm begins and when it will finish, sometimes it uses to form clots inside the atrium while it fibrilates and then, when rythm becomes normal, those clots are launched by the already normal atrium contraction via left ventriculum and aorta, anywhere in the body, however with an special preference to carothyds and the brain... and THAT is maybe the real reason why Doctors decided to ground Deke. Today it is mandatory the use of anticoagulants in people who suffers Atrial Fibrilation, just to prevent the installation of these clots inside Left Atrium and their consequences. The use of an anticoagulant in an Astronaut may be an inherent danger too, because the subtle risk of an hemorrage during a flight, however, with the years Deke proved to never show signs of repeated Atrial Fibrilation again and after years of grounding, he was finally allowed to participate in the trio of Astronauts who flew the joint mission with the Russians, back in 1975.

55:00 apparently James McDivit was not impressed with Cernan, and the helicopter crash.

Today , in our world where every detail about our lives must be known and policed you could never use an alias name to get a medical improvement surgery done under the table. Shepard was smart and savvy , thus pushed himself into bigger greatness and hopefully didn't hurt anyone moving up the ''ladder''.

Shepard not looking too good here, would die about six months later. He does mention towards the end that his health was not the best. I would have liked for them to get more into the frustrations of Apollo 14 and the time pressures during the moonwalk, but maybe that was too much detail to get into in a relatively short interview. Would have also liked to hear his opinion on Edgar Mitchell's loopy ESP experiments on the flight home. I was a little surprised in this interview and the one with Gordon Cooper that they were both very positive and supportive of John Glenn's later space flight, having heard Frank Borman's very opposite opinion (him saying that it was a politically motivated useless stunt). I tend to agree more with Borman.

Hero…

Here is the Medal ceremony that Alan Shepard discussed at 46:48 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4Qd-t3vFsxc.html

Extrodinarily intelligent man. Awesome in fact, and talk about determination. I think he was only matched by Borman.

walt disney was the first telling us about a moon landing..although he left us ΑΩ

From what I have read he was not a positive influence on the new 9 or 14. he was feared and avoided for the most part and that is a shame.

be-tul = right = true = about +ve indicator

ha-ru - bi-ru = chaos

Polka dot plant = Freckle-face

he could be the first human if soviets didn't attempt the reckless mission.

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