Light This Candle: The Life & Times of Alan Shepard--America's First Spaceman
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Shepard’s famed love of golf would later inspire him to bring a golf club and two balls to the moon—and earn him many subsequent invitations to golf tournaments. (Courtesy of Ralph Morse/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)
After surgery cured his disease, Shepard fought his way back into the flight rotation and was assigned— along with two men who’d never flown into space before—to a mission to the moon. Some of the other astronauts dubbed the Apollo 14 crew “The Rookies.” Others were amazed at Shepard’s politicking, which he used to leapfrog ahead of other veteran astronauts who were waiting for a lunar mission. (Courtesy of NASA)
Firing up a celebratory cigar after Gemini VI. At the time, Shepard was grounded by a debilitating inner ear disease. (Courtesy of NASA)
At forty-seven, he was the oldest of NASA’s sixty astronauts, but he trained hard for Apollo 14— that training would come in handy when Apollo 14 experienced problems. (Courtesy of NASA)
(Courtesy of NASA)
The Saturn V booster rocket beneath Apollo 14 was one hundred times more powerful than the Redstone rocket that had launched Shepard’s Freedom 7 capsule ten years earlier. (Courtesy of NASA)
Shepard and Ed Mitchell practicing inside their lunar module. (Courtesy of NASA)
Just before leaving the moon’s surface, Shepard—the fifth man on the moon— whacked two golf balls with a makeshift six-iron (a golf club head attached to a rock-collecting tool handle). (Courtesy of NASA)
Playing golf at Pebble Beach in 1995, a year before he was diagnosed with leukemia. (Courtesy of J. D. Cuban/ Allsport/Getty Images)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Alan Shepard was a diligently private man. His many loyal friends knew and respected that, which makes me all the more grateful to those who nonetheless spoke with me at length, who invited me into their homes, opened up photo albums and scrapbooks, offered a meal, a scotch, a bed—and a story. I hope this book honors their faith in my attempts to tell a great story about a good man.
I’m honored to have had the privilege of spending time with three of the four surviving Mercury 7 astronauts: John Glenn, Wally Schirra, and Gordon Cooper—thank you. Thanks also to the dozens of astronauts, journalists, NASA officials, Navy and Naval Academy men, and family friends who invited me into their homes or offices, particularly these kind people: Walter Cronkite; Chris Kraft; Al Neuharth; Ed Mitchell; Henri Landwirth; Bobbie Slayton; Ralph Morse; Gene Cernan; Mickey Kapp; Lola Morrow; Jack King; Howard Benedict; Jay Barbree; George and Betty Whisler; Jig Dog Ramage; Bob Elder; Dorel Abbot, Sam Beddingfield; Bill Hines; Charles Spangler; Lorraine Meyer; Hattie Durgin; Peter Vanderhoef; Francis Gallien; my good friends Bill and Diane Lawrence; and my new friend Robert Beresford Williams, and his wife, Carol. Thanks also to the Class of ’45, especially Al Blackburn; to my e-mail-and-phone friends, Dee O’Hara, Bill Dana, and Paul Haney; and to USS Cogswell crewmen Andrew Atwell, John Huber, Tom Spargo, and, especially, Howard Johnson.
I’m awed by the treasures I found in dusty books and boxes of the libraries, archives, and oral history collections I visited across the country, and am thankful to those working to preserve those bits of our history, the people who kindly showed me where to dig, especially: the inestimable Paul Stillwell and Ann Hassinger at the U.S. Naval Institute; “Cousin” Dave Thompson and Colvin Randall at Longwood Gardens; Steve Garber and Jane Odom at the NASA History Office; Kent, Cindy, and Barbara at the National Archives repository in Fort Worth and the staff of the National Archives in College Park; Shelly Kelly and Anna Keebler at the NASA archives at the University of Houston, Clear Lake; Norman Delaney at Delmar College in Corpus Christi; Glen Swanson at the Johnson Space Center; Gary Lavalley at the Naval Academy library; Kerry Johnson and Robin Perrin at Pinkerton Academy; Hill Goodspeed at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola; Nancy Montgomery with the Chief of Naval Air Training in Corpus Christi; and Linda Colton at the FBI’s FOIA office.
This book improved with each bit of advice from friends who slogged through sloppy first drafts. Thank you Brian and Cheryl Klam, Katherine and David Reed, Lou King, Mike Hudson, Pauline Trimarco, Victor Yung, Juliette Tower, and, most especially, my Jersey goomba, Jim Haner. Thanks to Buzz Bissinger, Robert Ruby, Bob Timberg, and Richard Ben Cramer for early advice; to Rob Montone and family for loaning me Chez Montone at the lake to write; to Eric Schenck for hiring me when the cash ran low; and to my mom, Pat, and sister, Maura, for inspiration.
I would not have leaped into the abyss without the initial nudge and support from John Seigenthaler at the First Amendment Center and the Freedom Forum. And I’d like to acknowledge a few of the many who provided technical guidance for the paperback: Robert Pearlman and his dedicated crew at CollectSpace.com, Francis French at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, Peter King at CBS News, Ted Spitzmiller, and Joel Turpin.
Finally, special thanks to my dad, Phil, the flyer, for attempting to teach me about flight and about life; to my agent, Michael Carlisle, and my friend, Larry Chilnick; to Emily Loose and Caroline Sincerbeaux, for their shrewd, sharp editing; and to the copy editors and designers at Crown Books.
Words can’t express how lucky I feel to have worked passionately on this book atop a foundation of undeterred support from my wife, Mary, and sons, Sean and Leo.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NEAL THOMPSON is a veteran news reporter who has worked for the Baltimore Sun, St. Petersburg Times, and Philadelphia Inquirer. As a freelance journalist, he has written for Outside magazine, Men’s Health, Backpacker, and the Washington Post magazine. He lives with his wife and their two sons in Asheville, North Carolina, where he teaches at the University of North Carolina and is writing a book about moonshine, NASCAR, and the South. Visit his website at www.nealthompson.com.
Copyright © 2004 by Neal Thompson
Foreword copyright © 2005 by Chris Kraft
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thompson, Neal.
Light this candle: the life and times of
Alan Shepard / Neal Thompson.—1st ed.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Shepard, Alan B. (Alan Bartlett), 1923– 2. Astronauts—
United States—Biography. I. Title.
TL789.85 .S5T
629.45’0092—dc22 2003015688
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-42119-7
v3.0