Space Center Relives My Rocket-Obsessed Youth

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. — My fascination with astronauts and the space program was launched when Mercury astronaut Alan Shepherd rode on the back of a red convertible in a parade through downtown Pembroke, N.H. in 1961. He had just become the second person and the first American to reach outer space, as it was quaintly called then. The United States and the Soviet Union were on a race to the moon. I was hooked on all things to do with rockets, launches and splashdowns, and especially the brave men who were strapped in to tiny capsules and sent soaring into the heavens. (Women wouldn’t get their...

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