Overview

Alan Shepard was born the United States of America on November 18, 1923 in East Derry, Derry, NH. At the start of his career he worked as a Navy Test Pilot. He was then selected to be an Astronaut at NASA in 1959 and flew on the Mercury Redstone 3 (Freedom 7) mission in 1961. He became the first American in Space but was later grounded in 1963 due to an ear disease. While grounded he became the Chief of the Astronaut Office at NASA (where he selected the astronauts for each mission) from 1963 to 1969 and 1971-1974 when he retired. After his ear was repaired he commanded the Apollo 14 mission to the moon.