June 2017 Sports Card & Memorabilia Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 6/25/2017
Rare Alan Shepard Jr. signed 8"x10" NASA Apollo 14 photo card (Beckett COA). Alan personalized the autograph "To Royce". Rear Admiral Alan B. Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman.
A graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Shepard saw action with the surface navy during World War II. He was selected as one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts in 1959, and in May 1961 he made the first manned Project Mercury flight, MR-3, in a spacecraft he named Freedom 7. His craft entered space, but did not achieve orbit. He became the second person, and the first American, to travel into space, and the first person to manually control the orientation of his spacecraft. In the final stages of Project Mercury, Shepard was scheduled to pilot the Mercury-Atlas 10 (MA-10), which was planned as a three-day mission. He named Mercury Spacecraft 15B Freedom 7 II in honor of his first spacecraft, but the mission was cancelled.
Shepard commanded the Apollo 14 mission, piloting the Apollo Lunar Module Antares to the most accurate landing of the Apollo missions. At age 47, he became the fifth and oldest person to walk on the Moon, and the only one of the Mercury Seven astronauts to do so. During the mission, he hit two golf balls on the lunar surface. He was Chief of the Astronaut Office from November 1963 to July 1969 (the approximate period of his grounding), and from June 1971 until his retirement from the United States Navy and NASA on August 1, 1974. He was promoted to rear admiral on August 25, 1971, the first astronaut to reach that rank.
Condition: EX-NM
Alan Shepard Jr. Apollo 14 Signed 8"x10" NASA Photo Card (Beckett COA) Personalized "To Royce"
Click above for larger image.