A front row seat to space history

When it comes to space travel, Wimberley resident Julie Shepard Jenkins has pretty much had a ringside seat.

She held her breath as her father, Astronaut Alan Shepard, became the first American to be hurled into space back in May, 1961.

More recently, she was the invited guest of the world’s richest man, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who blasted off in the Blue Origin New Shepard spacecraft — named after Alan Shepard — on July 20 near the West Texas town of Van Horn.

Says Julie: “I got to reflect on these new pioneers. They are building a road to space that is very exciting. I wasn’t really prepared for how emotionally I was touched when Jeff Bezos honored my father.”

It all happened quickly

Julie was in Florida a few weeks ago planning an event to honor the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 14 flight to the moon that was commanded by her father. She ran into a photographer who worked for Bezos’ company. Soon Julie, her son Shepard Coleman and her sister Laura Churchley received VIP invitations to attend the historic launch.

They drove to Van Horn — a town of 1,700 located on Interstate 10 about 120 miles east of El Paso — where Blue Origin put them up at a hotel. A car arrived at 5:30 the next morning to take them to the launch facility north of Van Horn.

There were only 50 or 60 invited guests at Blue Origin that morning. “It’s almost like its own little NASA out there,” says Julie. “It reminded me of Cape Canaveral in Van Horn.”

They were served “a nice Texas breakfast,” muffins and burritos. “But it was so exciting, Laura and I really didn’t feel like eating,” Julie recalls.

The blastoff

They were then taken to a three-story tower to watch the launch three to four miles away. “We got to see the sunrise and met a lot of the people who worked on the mission,” says Julie.

Alan Shepard’s family did not attend the launch of Freedom 7 back in 1961. Competition to become the first American to go into space was between astronauts Shepard, Gus Grissom and John Glenn.

The Shepard family was on hand for the blast off of Apollo 14 in 1971.

“I thought about that Redstone rocket that Daddy went up in,” says Julie. “Daddy would have been so proud that they named this after him.”

Julie, Laura and Shepard attended the press conference with the crew of the New Shepard: Bezos, his bother Mark Bezos, 82-year-old aviator Wally Funk, and 18-year-old Dutch physics student Oliver Daemen. “We enjoyed Wally Funk very much,” Julie says.

“Bezos,” says Julie, “was very kind. He wasn’t ostentatious at all. He was very down to earth. He was very thankful to all his Amazon employees and to the Amazon customers who made this possible.” Bezos introduced the Shepard family during the nationally broadcasted press conference.

Alan Shepard’s first flight lasted about 15 minutes and propelled him 116 miles into space.

The New Shepard carried its crew up 66.5 miles and lasted 11 minutes.

Comparing flights

Alan Shepard was in a bulky pressurized suit and wedged into a cramped capsule with one small porthole window. The New Shepard crew wore lightweight space suits in the pressurized capsule with panoramic windows. They floated around inside the capsule, experiencing weightlessness.

While in space, Shepard, an experienced Navy pilot who retired as an admiral, tested the capsule’s altitude-control system and its retrorockets. The New Shepard and its crew were guided by computers.

Alan Shepard splashed down near the Bahamas and was plucked from the Atlantic Ocean by a Navy helicopter. The New Shepard floated back down in the desert near Van Horn. “When I saw those parachutes (as the capsule floated back down to earth), it brought back memories of Daddy,” says Julie.

In contrast, Shepard’s 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission lasted more than nine days and reached more than 400,000 miles above the earth’s surface.

“I really do believe comparing Daddy’s capsule to what they use today is incredible. The technology today is amazing,”says Julie.

“Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin folks, they were able to piggyback on over 40 years of NASA work,” retired Astronaut Clayton Anderson told Yahoo Finance. “They did today what Alan Shepard did in 1961, but they did it more efficiently in a way cooler fashion based on the leaps in technology.”

After the flight, Julie and Shepard headed home. “While I was driving I was thinking about the new space pioneers we have,” says Julie.

Blue Origin is planning more flights into space and seats are available. For information go to www.blueorigin.com and click on “Become an Astronaut.”