But when I was selected, after my very first tour of squadron duty, to become one of the youngest candidates for the test pilot school, I began to realize, maybe you are a little bit better.

He was also project test pilot on the F5D Skylancer and his last five months at Patuxent were spent as an instructor in the Test Pilot School. Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr.

He was promoted from Captain to Rear Admiral on August 25 1971. During the mission he hit two golf balls on the lunar surface. This Mercury flight was designed to enter space but not to achieve orbit.