We’ve Been Sending Men To Space For Fifty Years

It was a different time. The cold war was well underway. No love was lost between us and the Soviet Union. We were obviously behind–far behind.

I can’t believe I missed this. I report science on FoxCT and didn’t even notice today was the 50th anniversary of America’s first man in space, Alan Shepard. He went a little under 200 miles downrange–a disappointment. The Russians had already launched and recovered Yuri Gagarin from an orbital flight.

It was a different time. The cold war was well underway. No love was lost between us and the Soviet Union. We were obviously behind–far behind.

Shepard was “Spam in a can,” more passenger than pilot. He was still a hero.

We picked up a new catchphrase that day: “A-OK.” I thought it was Shepard who’d said it. Wrong.

In reporting the Freedom 7 flight, the press attributed the term to Astronaut Shepard, and indeed NASA News Release 1-61-99, May 5, 1961, has Shepard report “A.OK” shortly after impact. A replay of the flight voice communications tape disclosed that Shepard himself did not use the term. It was Col. John A. “Shorty” Powers who reported Shepard’s condition as “A.OK” in a description of the flight. Tecwyn Roberts of STG and Capt. Henry E. Clements of the Air Force had used “A.OK” frequently in reports written more than four months before the Shepard flight.” – NASA history project

Shepard was a naval aviator “Right Stuff” guy who stayed on with NASA after Project Mercury going to the Moon with the Apollo program. He later ran NASA’s Astronaut Office. He died in 1998.

There was excitement over the space program back then. Not so today.