the first American in space and the fifth person to walk on the Moon. He piloted the sub-orbital Mercury-Redstone 3 mission on board the Freedom 7 capsule on 5 May 1961, and commanded the Apollo 14 lunar landing mission in 1971.
Shepard was born in East Derry, New Hampshire, and graduated in 1944 from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. He served as a fighter pilot, test pilot, and aircraft readiness officer of the Atlantic fleet before being selected to become a NASA astronaut in 1959. He resigned in 1974.