Astronaut Alan Bartlett Shepard, Junior, the first American in space on 5 May 1961, also commanded the mission of Apollo 14 to the Moon in 1971.

This retired rear admiral in the Navy of the United States, an aviator, the second person. Ten years later, he, the fifth such person, walked.

People original named him for Mercury in 1959. After Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, he the second such person, reached 116 miles of altitude during a suborbital flight. Prosper Ménière's disease, an inner ear condition, grounded him until an operation in 1969 fixed the problem. During the third lunar exploration from 31 January to 9 February 1971, he, the first and only such man, golfed.

Two years after diagnosis with leukemia, he died.