A nation celebrates

Alan Shepard’s colleague Gus Grissom had monitored the liftoff of Freedom 7 from inside the Mercury Control Center at Cape Canaveral. As prearranged, once Grissom knew that the mission was underway he left the building to make a short flight across to Grand Bahama Island. Once there, and while everyone waited for Shepard to also reach the island, Grissom was asked by reporters to comment on how he felt seeing his buddy launched into space, and when he thought his own chance might come. “I’m very happy,” he said in reply. “You can underline that. I wanted to be the one chosen for this shot and I certainly want to be chosen the next time. Everything went per­fectly, just like we practiced it a thousand times.” [1]