THE COMPETITOR

‘‘Who let a Russian in here?’’ Louise Shepard joked on the evening of 19 January 1961, when her husband announced that she had her arms around the man who would be first to conquer space. Her light-hearted words hinted at the closeness of the race between the United States and the Soviet Union in achieving that goal, but would prove unfortunately prophetic when, in less than three months’ time, Yuri Gagarin would rocket into orbit. Al Shepard would not be the first man in space, but would come close, missing out by barely three weeks. Privately and publicly, the gruff New Englander would fume over the lost opportunity to make history. ‘‘We had ‘em by the short hairs,’’ he would growl, ‘‘and we gave it away.’’

Shepard had been born in East Derry, New Hampshire, on 18 November 1923, the son of an Army colonel-turned-banker father and Christian Scientist mother and the progeny of a close-knit, fiercely loyal and wealthy family. His key qualities – bravery, a spirit of adventure and an absolute determination to be the best – emerged at a young age: as a boy, he did chores around the home and a paper round gave him enough money to buy a bicycle, which he rode to the local airport, cleaning hangars and checking out aircraft. At school, his boundless energy led teachers to advise that he skip ahead two grades, making him the youngest in each class he attended. After spending a year at Admiral Farragut Academy in New Jersey, Shepard entered the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, receiving his degree in 1944 and serving as an ensign aboard the destroyer Cogswell in the Pacific theatre during the closing months of the Second World War.

He subsequently trained as a naval aviator, taking additional flying lessons at a civilian school, and received his wings from Corpus Christi, Texas, and Pensacola, Florida, in 1947. Shepard served several tours aboard aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean and was chosen in 1950 to join the Navy’s Test Pilot School at Patuxent River – the famed ‘Pax River’ – in Maryland; whilst there, he established a reputation as one of the most conscientious, meticulous and hard-working fliers. On more than one occasion, he was hand-picked to wring out the intricacies of a new aircraft, purely on the basis of his technical skill and precision. His test work included missions to obtain data on flight conditions at different altitudes, together with demonstrations of in-flight refuelling systems, suitability trials of the F-2H-3 Banshee jet and evaluations of the first angled carrier deck.

Later, as operations officer for the Banshee, attached to a fighter squadron at Moffett Field, California, Shepard made two tours of the western Pacific aboard the Oriskany. A return to Pax River brought further flight testing: this time of the F-3H Demon, F-8U Crusader, F-4D Skyray and F-11F Tiger jets, together with posts as a project officer for the F-5D Skylancer and as an instructor at the school. Graduation from the Naval War College in Rhode Island in 1957 led to assignment to the staff of the commander-in-chief of the Atlantic Fleet as an aircraft readiness officer. By the time he was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in April 1959, Shepard had accumulated 8,000 hours of flying time, almost half of it in high-performance jets. His flight-test experience surpassed that of the other members of the Mercury Seven, although he was alone among them in having never flown in combat.

His standoffish attitude also set him apart from the others. Since childhood, perhaps in light of his family’s wealth, Shepard had been a loner and in his years at NASA many fellow astronauts would comment on his notorious dual personalities: warm and smiling one minute, icy and remote the next. ‘‘If you were a friend of Al’s,’’ said Deke Slayton’s wife Bobbie, ‘‘and you needed something, you could call him and he’d break his neck trying to get it for you. If you were in, you were in. It was just tough to get in.’’ During the mid-Sixties, when he was grounded from flying due to an inner-ear ailment and serving as NASA’s chief astronaut, Shepard’s secretary would put a picture of a smiling or scowling face on her desk each morning to pre-warn astronauts of which personality to expect from ‘Big Al’ that day.

Reputation-wise, though, he was quick-witted, a top-notch aviator and, as a leader, possessed all of the characteristics of a future admiral – a rank which, even whilst attached to NASA and never having commanded a ship, he attained in 1971. In fact, when he told his father of his selection as an astronaut candidate, the older Shepard expressed grave misgivings that he was abandoning a promising naval career for what was perceived by many as an ill-defined programme with limited

prospects, run by a newly-established civilian agency. For Shepard, though, Project Mercury represented a logical extension to a life spent looking for the next challenge. His competitive nature had become the stuff of legend years before Mercury and had gotten him into hot water with superiors on more than one occasion: after several illicit, close-to-the-ground flying stunts, known as ‘flat-hats’ – one over a crowded naval parade ground, another looping under and over the half-built Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Maryland and a third blowing the bikini tops off sunbathing women on Ocean City beach – he had come dangerously close to court-martial.

Undoubtedly, Shepard’s less-than-reputable exploits had come to the attention of the NASA selection board, but Neal Thompson speculated that it was viewed as an aspect of his fearless and competitive personality, rather than as an excuse to discard his application. He indulged in other hobbies, too. After taking up water-skiing, he progressed rapidly from two skis to one and, later, even experimented on the soles of his bare feet. His wife, Louise, whom he had married in 1945 whilst at Annapolis, would remark that it was ‘‘characteristic’’ of Shepard to always be restless for new challenges. His biggest feat – and, he would say later, his proudest professional accomplishment – was selection to fly the first American manned space mission. ‘‘That was competition at its best,’’ he said, ‘‘not because of the fame or the recognition that went with it, but because of the fact that America’s best test pilots went through this selection process, down to seven guys, and of those seven, I was the one to go. That will always be the most satisfying thing for me.’’