Alan B. Shepard, Jr.: The Mercury Project and America's First Man into Space

By Annie Laura Smith and Steve S Gierhart

This is a children's book of the life and career of Alan B. Shepard, Jr., the first American to go to space under NASA's Mercury Project in his Freedom 7 capsule. He was also selected for NASA's Apollo 14 Mission as the oldest person to fly to and land on the moon which landed in the Fra Mauro highlands of the l

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Ardent Writer Press, LLC
• Release date: Sep 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781640661301

Annie Laura Smith

Annie Laura Smith has written five historical novels for young readers. She and her son and daughter were at Cape Canaveral on June 18, 1983, and watched Challenger launched into space with Sally Ride aboard as the Mission Specialist. Smith lives in Huntsville, Alabama, near the Marshall Space Flight Center. She is the compiler of an Early Reader biography of Sally Ride, the first woman to go into space; Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon; Wehner von Braun, Space Scientist; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Project Mercury [United States' First Men-in-Space Program (1958-1963)]; and John Herschel Glenn, Jr., Space Pioneer and Senator, Dedicated Public Servant and Family Man.

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BACKGROUND

THE U.S. CONGRESS passed legislation establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a civilian agency responsible for coordinating America’s activities in space, on July 29, 1958. NASA was created in response to the Soviet Union’s October 4, 1957 launch of its first satellite, Sputnik I. President Dwight D. Eisenhower suggested the first astronauts come from the ranks of military test pilots for the United States’ first men-in-space program, the Mercury Project. The Mercury Project was established by NASA on October 7, 1958. Women also applied to be astronauts, but were ineligible until the Space Shuttle program.

Project Mercury was named after a Roman god who was very fast. The objectives of the program, which made six manned flights from 1961 to 1963