Monday, May 06, 2013

May 5th 1961 Alan B. Shepard - First Man From U.S. In Space

Alan Shepard became the first American in space when the Freedom 7 spacecraft lifted off from Florida on May 5, 1961. Not to be one to set on his laurels, Shepard continued with the program and 12 years later, he become the fifth man to walk on the moon.


Now for the nit pickers out there, yes I know -  sub orbital and ballistic, but give it a rest! After all these years, give the man his due.  When he was taken off active flight status, missing his chance at the first Gemini, he continued on in a planning and advisory position.  After surgery to correct an inner ear problem he ones again gained a seat on Apollo 14.   Yeah, I think he had the right stuff. 

Click HERE for the Space.com article

11 comments:

Dave Tackett said...

I won't nitpick about the flight being sub-orbital, if it had been orbital then he, and not John Glenn, would have been the first American to orbit the Earth.

However, I have to nitpick about the title. He was the second man in space, but he was the first American. [Yuri Gagarin beat him by a mere 23 days]

kallamis said...

Not sure there was enough room in the title area there Dave. I've ran into that myself. But it was made clear in the first sentence anyway.
Lets go easy Dave. Sometimes these get written up at 3-4am. I know that for a fact. And at that time of the morning. sometimes not everything goes right in the noggin. Remember my screw up on the moon. That was one of those done while fighting not to go to sleep.

Dave Tackett said...

Ha, that is easy. People who misuse use the word "literally" get shoved out the airlock.

But seriously, I understand. At QD, I've not only perfect the art of the typo, I may have invented the cut-and-paste-o.

kallamis said...

Lol. Yeah, you should see me doing the weekly at 3 am if you want to see typo's. If it wasn't for auto spell check, the bloody thing would be completely illegible.
And yeah, I've had people furious at me over that word. Like when they say it was literally coming down in buckets, or it was literally raining cats and dogs.
And I have heard much worse usages of it as well. And just think Dave. Soon it will get even worse with the language. Only about 1 out of 10 in school can remotely speak correctly. And did you see the percentage of kids in schools now have no idea who Anne Frank was. They don't teach English, don't teach history, so what can we expect. And the way dictionaries are going with the new stuff like LOL, OMG etc being added, I wonder where the language will be in 20 years, or if we will even be able to communicate with anyone under 15.
I just can't agree with text message shortcuts being treated as words. It's bad enough I have even heard people use this in ordinary language already. And not just the OMG, but LOL as well. I just shook me head and got out of there.

Beam Me Up said...

Yeah, I noticed that I did that just as I was posting and then all I wanted was to crash. But yeah, that needs to be corrected. Thanks for the heads up Dave

Beam Me Up said...

Yep, 3 & 4 am are not unusual, but I did have enough space to get U.S. but you are right, totally asleep at the wheel on that one!

Beam Me Up said...

he cut-and-paste-o. Ha! I love it!

kallamis said...

So I was right. I had a feeling it was done in the early morning hours. I'm getting better at judging when we right things up out here.
But then, there are a few of us here that seem to spend more than half the night trying to stay awake. That's when all the good stuff comes on tv anyway.

Beam Me Up said...

yep yep....

kallamis said...

And you see what happens when you stay up all night. You use right, instead of write. Glad I caught that myself before I got called on it.
I really need to learn how to sleep more.

Beam Me Up said...

Friday before the program, I was asking people that at one time I considered educated. When I asked one in particular what may 5th 1961 was important in US history....straight faced he said....Cinco de Mayo? ok, yeah, it IS Cinco de Mayo but US history?!!! My God, it is almost 3 am and I still am furious.....