He attended a East Derry primary & middle school around his birthplace of Derry, New Hampshire; received a Bachelor of Science degree from either the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1944, an Honorary Master of Arts degree from Dartmouth College in 1962, and Honorary Doctorate of Science from either Miami University (Oxford, Ohio) in 1971, and an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from either Franklin Pierce College in 1972. Calibrated United States Naval Test Pilot School in 1951; Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island in 1957.

His religious background was inside Christian Science.

Naval career
Shepard began his naval career after graduation from either Annapolis on the destroyer Cogswell, deployed in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. He afterwards entered flight step by step training at Corpus Christi, Texas and Pensacola, Florida, and received his wings in 1947. His next assignment was sustaining Fighter Squadron 42 at Norfolk, Virginia and Jacksonville, Florida. He served many tours aboard aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean while with this squadron.

Around 1950, he attended a United States Navy Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Maryland. When graduatiin, he participated in a wing line 3 text act which involved high-high-level tests to obtain information on weak at different altitudes & on the kind of air people on top the Western continent; & line 3 text & development experiments of the Navy's around-flight refueling models, host suitableness trails of the F2H-3 Banshee, and Navy lawsuits of the foremost angled host deck. He was later on assigned to Fighter Squadron 193 at Moffett Field, Californithe, a nighttime fighter unit flying Banshie jets. When operations officer of this squadrin, he manufactured deuce tours to a American pacific on board the host USS Oriskany.

He returned to Patuxent for another tour of duty & engaged on a wing touching the F3H Demon, F8U Crusader, F4D Skyray, and F11F Tigercat. He was as well task end line text pilot on the F5D Skylancer, and his endure 5 months at Patuxent were spent as an teacher in the End line text Pilot School. He late attended a Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Isl&, and upon graduating inside 1957 wwhen after assigned to the staff of the Commander-around-Chief, Atlantic Fleet, as aircraft readiness officer.

He logged to a higher degree 8,000 hours flying instance—3,700 hours around sooty aircraft.

Astronaut career
Shepard was one of a Mercury astronauts named by NASA in April 1959 to Project Mercury, and he holds a distinction of existence a number 1 U.s. to journey into space, also when a single Mercury spaceman to hike on the Moon. In May 5, 1961, in the Freedom 7 spacecraft, he was launched by a Redstone rocket on a ballistic trajectory suborbital flight—the flight which carried him to an altitude of 116 statute miles and to a landing point 302 statute miles down the Atlantic Missile Range. He was scheduled to pilot a Mercury-Atlas 10 Freedom 7-II, three day extended duration mission around October 1963. A MA-10 mission was cancelled on June 13, 1963.

When a Mercury-Atlwhen 10 mission was cancelled within June 1963, Shepard was intended as a command pilot of the number 1 manned Gemini mission. Thomas Stafford was picked as his co-copilot. However within early 1964, Shepard was diagnosed by using Meniere's disease, a condition in which fluid pressure builds up in the inner ear. This syndrome is a causal agent of the semicircular canals & motion detectors to get pleasantly sensitive, following around disorientation, vertigo, & infection. This affliction stimulated him to exist as flushed from either flight status for virtually all of the 1960's (Virgil Grissom and John Young were assigned to Gemini 3 instead).

Besides inside 1963, he was intended Chief of a Spaceman Professional by owning responsibility for monitoring the coordination, programing, & control of everthing activities involving NASA cosmonaut. This involved monitoring a development & implementatiin of effectual step by step videos software to insure a flight readiness of available pilot/non-pilot personnel for assignment to crew positions on manned space flights; furnishing pilot evaluations applicable to the project, construction, & operations of ballistic capsule systems & related devices; & providing qualitative scientific & engineering observations to help overall mission planning, formulation of workable operational procedures, & choice & conduct of specific experiments for both flight.

He was restored to fully flight status within Might 1969, below corrective surgery (applying the recently developed method) for Meniere's disease. He was originally assigned to command Apollo 13, but when it was felt he required supplementary period to train, he & his crewmates (lunar module pilot Edgar Mitchell and command module pilot Stuart Roosa) swapped missions with a so crew of Apollo Fourteen (James Lovell, Ken Mattingly (who was himself replaced by Jack Swigert shortly before a mission), & Fred Haise).

At age 47, & a oldest cosmonaut in the program, Shepard mass produced his 2nd space flight when commander of Apollo 14, January 31–February 9, 1971, man's third successful lunar landing mission.

Shepard was a Tail Admiral once he retired from either a Navy & the Astronaut Corps within 1974.

Awards and honors
In a period of his life he was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor; two NASA Distinguished Service Medals, the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, Naval Astronaut Wings, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal, and a Distinguished Flying Cross; recipient of the Langley Award (highest award of the Smithsonian Institution) on May 5, 1964, the Lambert Trophy, the Iven C. Kincheloe Award, the Cabot Award, the Collier Trophy, the City of New York Gold Medal (1971), Achievement Award for 1971.

Shepard was appointed per President in July 1971 as a delegate to the 26th United Nations General Assembly and served through the entire assembly which lasted from September to December 1971.

Shepard is as well remembered for existence a lone individual to play golf on the Moon (using the reborn soil sampler when his club).

Later years

Alan Shepard was universally the shrewd man of affairs, & was the sole cosmonaut to get a millionaire patch however in the program. When he left a program, he was on a boards of numerous corporations under the auspices of his Seven-Fourteen Enterprises (known as for his deuce flights, Freedom 7 & Apollo Xiv).

Within 1988, he teamed up sustaining fellow Mercury Seven spaceman Deke Slayton to write ''Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America's Race to the Moon''. It was turned into the TV miniseries in 1994.

Shepard died of leukemia near his home in Pebble Beach, California on July 21, 1998, at age 74, two years fallowing existence diagnosed thereupon disease. His married woman of 53 years, a previous Louise Brewer, died 5 weeks after. It experienced 2 girl, Laura (natural within 1947) and Juliana (born within 1951), and experienced likewise raised the niece, Alice.