Open Road Integrated Media
"Moon Shot" recounts the story of the early space effort. NBC News correspondent Jay Barbree has updated the book, written with astronauts Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton as co-authors, for the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. and Soviet spaceflights.
The invasion force that gathered outside the home of Louise and Alan Shepard was on its own "hold," sipping coffee and consuming the pastries that were brought to them by the Shepards' neighbors.
Photographers, television crews, reporters and broadcasters were all playing the waiting game, hoping that Louise Shepard would emerge from her home to talk with them, tell them how she felt, what her emotions were, everything from pride to fear of ...
No. She would not admit to the wolves at the door that anything could go wrong. This moment felt familiar. She'd waited before when Alan had flown closer to the earth, as a Navy test pilot. She knew the clammy feelings when he was late, but that was a straight road to a nervous breakdown, and she had pushed all that away from her long before now.
Test planes or rockets. It didn't matter. If the danger was real, Alan would have told her. They lived by that agreement. No heroics. The truth, plain and simple.
