Good morning, Whitewater.
Thursday in town will be sunny with a high of sixty-four. Sunrise is 5:41 AM and sunset 8:01 PM, for 14h 19m 21s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM tonight, and there will be a business meeting of the Fire Department at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1961, Alan Shepard Jr. became the first American in space. Here’s how the New York Times drescribed that event:
Cape Canaveral, Fla. — A slim, cool Navy test pilot was rocketed 115 miles into space today.
Thirty-seven-year-old Comdr. Alan B. Shepard Jr. thus became the first American space explorer.
Commander Shepard landed safely 302 miles out at sea fifteen minutes after the launching. He was quickly lifted aboard a Marine Corps helicopter.
“Boy, what a ride!” he said, as he was flown to the aircraft carrier Lake Champlain four miles away.
Extensive physical examinations were begun immediately.
Tonight doctors reported Commander Shepard in “excellent” condition, suffering no ill effects.
The near-perfect flight represented the United States’ first major step in the race to explore space with manned space craft.
True, it was only a modest leap compared with the once-around-the-earth orbital flight of Maj. Yuri A. Gagarin of the Soviet Union.
The Russian’s speed of more than 17,000 miles an hour was almost four times Commander Shepard’s 4,500. The distance the Russian traveled was almost 100 times as great.
But Commander Shepard maneuvered his craft in space–something the Russians have not claimed for Major Gagarin.