| ....the moon. Alan Bartlett "Al" Shepard (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998), was the first American to travel into space, however it was 10 years later, at age 47 and the oldest astronaut in the program, that Shepard commanded the Apollo 14 mission Shepard made his second space flight as Commander of Apollo 14 from January 31 – February 9, 1971, America's third successful lunar landing mission. This was the first mission to successfully broadcast color television pictures from the surface of the Moon, using a vidicon tube camera. (The color camera on Apollo 12 provided a few brief moments of color telecasting before it was inadvertently pointed at the Sun, ending its usefulness.) It was whilst on the Moon, Shepard used a Wilson six-iron head attached to a lunar sample scoop handle to drive golf balls. Despite thick gloves and a stiff spacesuit which forced him to swing the club with one hand, Shepard struck two golf balls; driving the second, as he jokingly put it, "miles and miles and miles". |
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