Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr., (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was the first US astronaut in space, and mission commander of the Apollo 14 moon landing team. He even played golf on the moon using a converted soil sampler as his club! Alan Shephard holds a small but significant place in the days of my life ... I drive every morning to work on Admiral Alan B. Shephard highway, and watch the Apollo moon rocket stand majestically across from our company offices, along with the Space Shuttle Pathfinder.
I should call these past 7 days or so as space week - the Space Shuttle return to flight was put off due to technical snags, the world celebrated 26 years of Neil Armstrong's moon landing, I had a visit to NASA's John Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, and now its the anniversary of Alan Shephard's death. Not to mention, like every day of the week, I had my usual ride along the Alan Shephard highway ....
Strange coincidences all over I suppose .... !
p.s. the Space Shuttle Discovery is finally underway (Jul 26) .... hopefully it will be back safely too!
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From the mind of a nerdy chemical engineer
that feed on their viscosity,
and little whorls have lesser whorls
and so on to viscosity
-Lewis Richardson
2 comments:
Ah yes, the rockets. Sometimes it is easy to forget about something that is seen everyday. Have you ever seen a shuttle lift-off? One that i went to see was scrubbed.
alan shepard was something like a childhood hero to me. i read abt armstrong, his famous "giant leap" quote. but nothing caught my imagination like playing golf on the moon. not that i liked golf. but to me it stirred the imagination like nothing else :)
a toast to that guy.
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