I know what you’re thinking: nobody was in space 85 years ago. You’re right.
But 85 years ago today — on November 18, 1923 — Alan Shepard was born in East Derry, New Hampshire. And a few years later, in May 1961, he became the first U.S. astronaut in space, when he flew a suborbital flight on a Mercury Redstone rocket. In January 1971 he walked on the moon as the mission commander of Apollo-14.
His official NASA biography is here. Rear Admiral Shepard died ten years ago this past July.
As I read his bio, I remembered that I’ve actually been to Derry, NH, where Shepard went to school. I traveled up there to play a Pop Warner football game when I was in middle school. A geographic coincidence, I guess.
(If I was more into coincidences of that type, I’d have sited my novel closer to one of the Apollo landing sites, instead of out-of-the-way in Mare Nubium.)
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