Hero’s Welcome For Shepard

Press, Volume C, Issue 29508, 9 May 1961, Page 15

Hero’s Welcome For Shepard

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, May 8.

Commander Alan Shepard, America’s first astronaut, will fly to Washington today to receive the plaudits of America’s leaders and to tell the nation about his brief flight into space.

Before he meets President Kennedy at the White House, the tall, crew-cut Navy officer will see his wife and parents for the first time since he made his pioneering space flight on Friday. It is to be his only major public appearance. National Aeronautics and Space Administration officials have ruled ’• that requests from New York and other major cities would have to be refused

Commander Shepard has spent the week-end at a United States Air Force base on Grand Bahama Island, where he was taken after the 300-mile. 15 minute flight that took him 115 miles above the earth and across the threshold of space.

After intensive medical examinations. doctors have reported that he showed absolutely no ill-effects from the ride, during which he was subjected to pressures of up to 11 times the force of gravity and was in a state of weightlessness for five minutes.

A United States Army doctor said yesterday that from a medical point of view, Commander Shepard was “disgustingly healthy ” Service doctors and psychiatrists who “de-briefed” the astronaut spoke with awe of his ability to take the stresses of space flight in his stride.

Officials of Project Mercury said Commander Shepard wanted to get back to work as soon as possible and was more apprehensive about today's programme than he had been about Friday’s feat. The N.AS.A. officials have set a subdued tone for today’s tribute to the 37-year-old astronaut, declaring that, great though it was, his feat was only a first step. But for six hours at least tens of thousands of Washington's citizens will be able to pay him tribute. Television cameras transmitting to millions of viewers across the United States will be trained on him from the moment he and his six fellow astronauts in the Mercury programme land at Andrews Air Force base outside Washington at 9 45 a m. There the former test pilot will greet his wife and

parents before they enter helicopters for the 14-mile flight to the White House President Kennedy and Mrs Kennedy will be waiting for him on a specially-built platform in the White House rose garden President Kennedy will invest Commander Shepard with NASA's distinguished service medal, an award made only once before A 30-minute talk with the President, Vice-Presi-dent Johnson. Congre»'ional leaders and NA S A officials will follow, while Mrs Kennedy entertains the women to morning coffee The astronauts then will go into a special conference with the President's special assistant for science and technology, Mr Jerome Weisner. Then will come a 15minute drive from the White House to the Capitol for a Congressional reception at 1130 a m. No brass bands will be playing. but Commander Shepard, his family and his six fellow astronauts will ride in open cars and acknowledge the cheers of the thousands who are expected to line the one and a quarter mile route, traditionally used for presidential inaugurations and parades honouring victorious wartime figures.

Guests at the Congressional reception include the full membership of both Houses of Congress and many other high-ranking Americans. The partv will leave the Capitol building for the State Department where, at 1 p.m. in the huge auditorium where President Kennedy holds his press conferences. Commander Shepard and his friends will face hundreds of reporters. photographers. and. again television cameras. The President’s press secretary. Mr Pierre Salinger, said yesterday there would be no time limit on the pre« conference. The other six astronauts also might be willing to answer questions, he said.

A private luncheon in a State Department dining room will follow the press conference. Then it is back to work for the astronauts They will fly to Langley Air Force base In Virginia, where Commander Sbenard will begin tomorrow three to five days of “mission simulation tests.”