Mr Alan Shepard, the first American in space and one of only a dozen men to walk on the moon, has died aged 74, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said yesterday. Mr Shepard, a former US navy pilot, died in his sleep on Tuesday night in his home town of Monterey, California, a NASA statement said.
Mr Shepard made history on May 5th, 1961, when he blasted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida for a 15-minute sub-orbital flight, five minutes of which were spent in actual space.
His craft reached an altitude of 115 miles (185km) before returning to a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.
It was a small beginning, but Mr Shepard's pioneering flight brought the US into the space race with the Soviet Union, 23 days after Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space.
"[It was] just the first baby step, aiming for bigger and better things," Mr Shepard said.
His words were echoed eight years later by Neil Armstrong, who declared: "One small step for man, one giant step for mankind," as he stepped on to the lunar surface to become the first man on the moon.
After being sidelined by an inner-ear ailment which required an operation and kept him out of space for a decade, Mr Shepard made history again as commander of the January 1971 Apollo 14 flight, becoming the fifth man to walk on the moon.
During his 33 hours on the moon he became the first man to play golf on its surface, sending a ball hurtling through the thin lunar atmosphere with a six-iron, hundreds of yards farther than it would have gone on Earth.
Mr Shepard was one of the original seven Mercury astronauts, known as "the Magnificent Seven," named by NASA in 1959 to take the US into space.
His death leaves only four still alive: John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper and Walter Schirra.
Asked in a recent interview if he would like to return to space, Mr Shepard replied: "I think I'm through . . . I think I'm finished."
Describing Mr Shepard as "one of our greatest astronauts", President Clinton said: "Those of us who are old enough to remember the first space flights will always remember what an impression he made on us and on the world. I would like to express the gratitude of our nation and to say that our thoughts and prayers are with his family." While grounded Mr Shepard served as Chief of the Astronaut Office, a position he returned to in 1971 after his lunar flight and in which he served until he retired in 1974 with the rank of rear admiral.
A banker's son, he was born in East Derry, New Hampshire, on November 18th, 1923. He received a degree from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1944 and spent the closing days of the second World War aboard a destroyer in the Pacific.
After retirement, Mr Shepard became chairman of Marathon Construction in Houston. He is survived by his wife and two children.