45 years ago today, Al Shepard was USA's first man in space.

[edbermac]

With a 15 minute suborbital flight aboard Freedom 7; 10 years later he would be the only member of the Original Seven Mercury astronauts to walk on the moon on the Apollo 14 mission.

A man who truly had The Right Stuff!



And here's a guy with The Wrong Stuff! What a contrast!

[Hubert Flottz]

1. I remember it well...I was proud of America ...then.

I never dreamed we go GOPer/Nazi...

[Captain Hilts]

3. Go Navy! Booo Texas Air National Guard! nt

[Cooley Hurd]

2. Al Shepard was a terrific pilot, Shrub is a terrific failure...

RIP, Smilin' Al Shepard.

[DUHandle]

4. Amazing accomplishment

considering what they had to work with!

[Kutjara]

5. Absolutely right on the money.

While Alan Shepherd was, to put it delicately, a bit of a prickly character and sometimes hard to get along with, there is no doubting the courage and daring of the man. I was a space nut as a kid and still know the names of all the astronauts from Friendship 7 through Apollo 17, but it was only when I grew up I realised what risks these people took in such primitive equipment. Truly remarkable. No less courageous were their Russian counterparts.

Then I look at the gentleman in the lower photo, all dressed up like he's going to a costume party. His very presence is an insult to the people who wear flightsuits like that every day of their working lives. Put him in real danger and he'd shit himself. The man is a magnet for contempt.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. It was a momentous day

I was in fifth grade, and they brought TVs into all the classrooms so that we could watch the launch live. (We also got to watch JFK's inauguration, and I can still recall an elderly and frail-looking Robert Frost reading his specially commissioned poem in a bitterly cold wind.)

By the way, when the news of Yuri Gagarin's flight came on the radio about a year earlier, we were at home eating lunch or dinner. My dad said, "I want you kids to remember this. This will be an important day in world history."

[Javaman]

7. What has happened to that America?? I weep for our present. nt