Personal Information
    Alan B. Shepard, Jr. was born on November 18, 1923.  He was born and raised in East Derry, New Hampshire.  He was the son of a retired Army colonel, Alan Bartlett Shepard, Sr., and Renza Emerson Shepard. 

     As a child, Shepard attended a one-room schoolhouse.  He lived on a farm, but he on weekends he rode his bike to the airport and did odd jobs.  There he learned about airplanes.     

Education    
    Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. attended the Admiral Farragut Academy in New Jersey.  He went to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis and graduated in 1944, becoming a Naval Aviator in 1947. In 1950, he attended the U.S. Navy Test Pilot School where he became an instructor. He also attended the Naval War College, graduating in 1957.

Experience
    During World War II, Shepard served as an ensign on the destroyer Cogswell.  After the war, he became a naval aviator and then a Navy test pilot.

     Shepard’s outstanding record as a test pilot with several thousand hours of complex flying played a major role in his selection as one of the original seven U.S. astronauts in 1959. He was evaluated as the best of the group, so he was chosen to be the first American in space.  After two years of extensive training, Shepard piloted the Mercury spacecraft Freedom 7 through its first successful sub-orbital flight. Although the flight lasted only 15 minutes, the capsule reached an altitude of 16 miles and speed of 5,180 miles per hour. This historic flight was the beginning of American's manned space programs.

     After his initial success, Shepard was grounded because of an inner ear disorder, but he remained with NASA as Chief of the Astronaut

Department. In this job, he was responsible for monitoring the development and implementation of programs for training space flight personnel, pilot evaluation of the design, construction, and operations of spacecraft systems and equipment, and mission planning.

     After successful ear surgery, he was restored to flight status in 1969, and he became the Commander of the Apollo XIV Mission in January 1971. On this, man's third lunar landing mission, Shepard, became the fifth man to walk on the moon.  He spent 33 hours on the lunar surface and 9 hours 17 minutes of it in extra- vehicular activity.  After this flight Shepard, resumed his duties as Chief of the Astronaut Office until 1974, when he retired from NASA and the Navy with the rank of Rear Admiral.

   Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. was the first American in space.  He was the fifth person to ever walk on the moon.

Honor

• Congressional Medal of Honor (Space)
   

• Invested in the International Aerospace Hall of Fame in 1971
   

• NASA Exceptional Service Medal
   

• Navy Distinguished Flying Cross
   

•  Langely Medal
   

• Lambert Trophy
   

• Kinchloe Trophy
   

• Cabot Award
   

•  Collier Trophy
   

• City of New York Gold Medal
   

• Achievement Award for 1971

Death
    Shepard passed away of leukemia at the age of 74, on July 21, 1998, at Community Hospital near Monterey,