Page 134 - Cousins - Celebrities, Saints & Sinners

Alan Shepard

8th Cousin

Common Ancestor

Father: Samuel Green
Maiden, Middlesex,
Massachusetts Bay, British
Colonial America
1645 - 1724

Mother: Mary Cook
Maiden, Middlesex, Born: Died:
Massachusetts Bay, British November 18, 1923 July 21, 1998
Colonial America Derry, New Hampshire, USA Monterey, California, USA
1649 – 1715

Legendary astronaut Alan Shepard was born on November
18, 1923, in East Derry, New Hampshire. After completing
high school, Shepard enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy
and served on the destroyer Cogswell in the Pacific during
World War II. After the war, he attended the U.S. Navy
Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland, in 1950.

As a test pilot, Shepard flew several experimental planes,
including the F3H Demon and F5D Skylancer. He also
served as an instructor at the Test Pilot School for a time.
Later on, he attended the Naval War College in Newport,
Rhode Island.

In 1959, Shepard won a coveted spot in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's
th
program for space exploration. He and six others, including John Glenn and Gus Grissom (10
cousin), became known as the "Mercury 7." They were an elite group chosen from one hundred
test pilots who have volunteered for the program.

Shepard made history on May 5, 1961, as his Freedom 7 spacecraft flew up into the sky from its
Florida launch pad. He became the first American in space, a month after the Soviet cosmonaut
Yuri Gagarin had earned the distinction as the first person in space. After roughly four hours of
delays, Shepard traveled more than 300 miles in his 15-minute-long mission. Shepard came
down in the Atlantic Ocean near the Bahamas, where he was picked up by the aircraft
carrier Lake Champlain.

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