Quotes from Alan Shepard

The first plane ride was in a homemade glider my buddy and I built. Unfortunately we didn't get more than four feet off the ground, because it crashed.

Obviously I was challenged by becoming a Naval aviator, by landing aboard aircraft carriers and so on.

You've done it in the simulator so many times, you don't have a real sense of being excited when the flight is going on. You're excited before, but as soon as the liftoff occurs, you are busy doing what you have to do.

Later, in the early teens, I used to ride my bike every Saturday morning to the nearest airport, ten miles away, push airplanes in and out of the hangars, and clean up the hangars.

We also knew it would be difficult, because of the financial condition of the family, for me to go to college.