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At Johnsville, Pa., he rode in a human centrifuge to feel crushing G forces. He learned to recognize useful stars. He took training in desert survival and practiced squirming out of a Mercury capsule while it was tossing on a choppy sea. He learned about weightlessness by flying in high-speed airplanes as they curved over the top half of an outside loop. He rode in a MASTIF (Multiple Axis Space Test Inertia Facility), a training device that tumbles on three axes, and learned how to bring it to an even keel. In quieter moments he studied astronautics, aviation biology, astronomy, meteorology and astrophysics. Always, he kept in top physical shape.
Most important of all, Shepard and his fellows (they are all as well trained as he) learned to operate the intricate machinery of a Mercury capsule, which is far from being a passive space vehicle that is just up there to coast along. Though it weighs only a little more than one ton (Russia's Vostok weighed five tons), it is packed with instruments, controls and safety devices, many of them merely duplicate systems for the sake of safety. Sealed into an actual capsule, Shepard "flew" dozens of simulated missions without leaving the ground, learned to handle the controls with skill, and found out exactly what he could do to save himself if anything went wrong.
Skis & Soles. For Shepard, the challenging curriculum seemed a natural outgrowth of the life that he likes to lead. Born in East Derry, N.H. (pop. 200), in 1923, he is the son of a retired Army colonel, but he chose the Naval Academy instead of West Point, was commissioned an ensign in 1944, and served on a destroyer in the Atlantic until the end of World War II. Everything he did, he did with a personal flair. When he wangled orders to flight school, he became so impatient with the pace of service routine that he got himself a private pilot's license at a civilian flight school. When he took up water skiing, he found two skis too prosaic; he learned to manage with one and is now planning to get a boat fast enough to pull him along on the soles of his bare feet. "It is characteristic of him always to find a challenge," says his pretty wife Louise, whom he married in 1945 after dating her at Annapolis. Shepard's prep school coach puts it another way: "He was a hard-nosed kid, always accepted a challenge. He always had a lot of courage."
As she and her two daughters, Laura, 13, and Juliana, 9, watched on TV while Alan Shepard blasted off last week, Louise never doubted that he would survive the challenge. Or so she said, as she wiped away her nervous tears when word came that her husband was safe. She had been resigned to the ordeal ever since he put in for space-flight training. The day that he got his orders to join Project Mercury, Christian Scientist Alan Shepard had a serious talk with his wife, harping on the security that an astronaut could never have. Louise listened for a while and said: "What are you bothering to ask me for? You know you'll do it anyway."