#t

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. ↗

— Alan Shepard

#become #began #better #bit #candidates

I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after all. ↗

— Alan Shepard

#after #am #history #i #i am

I think all of us certainly believed the statistics which said that probably 88% chance of mission success and maybe 96% chance of survival. And we were willing to take those odds. ↗

— Alan Shepard

#certainly #chance #i #i think #maybe

I think the sense of family and family achievement, plus the discipline which I received there from that one-room school were really very helpful in what I did later on. ↗

— Alan Shepard

#did #discipline #family #helpful #i

I woke up an hour before I was supposed to, and started going over the mental checklist: where do I go from here, what do I do? I don't remember eating anything at all, just going through the physical, getting into the suit. We practiced that so much, it was all rote. ↗

— Alan Shepard

#before #eating #getting #go #going

I'd like to say I was smart enough to finish six grades in five years, but I think perhaps the teacher was just glad to get rid of me. ↗

— Alan Shepard

#finish #five #get #glad #grades

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. ↗

— Alan Shepard

#away #bike #clean #clean up #early

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

— Alan Shepard

#aircraft #aviator #becoming #carriers #challenged

Of course, in our grade school, in those days, there were no organized sports at all. We just went out and ran around the school yard for recess. ↗

— Alan Shepard

#course #days #grade #grade school #just

So everything turned out fine, and we were given the opportunity to go to Washington and be briefed on the project of man in space, and given the opportunity to choose whether we wanted to get involved or not. ↗

— Alan Shepard

#choose #everything #fine #get #given