posted 05-04-2006 04:05 PM               

STAFFORD - Anthony D. Vitulli, a resident of the Coves section of Stafford, still remembers the day as though it happened yesterday.

"I was standing on the O-7 level with a 4-by-5 camera and photographed the capsule
as it came out of the sky," the 67-year-old said. "We could see the capsule clearly,
the landing was that accurate."

What Vitulli saw was the landing of Alan B. Shepard Jr. off to one side of the
aircraft carrier USS Lake Champlain. Shepard, at the age of 37, became America's first astronaut when he was launched aboard Freedom 7 on May 5, 1961, 45 years ago Friday.

Vitulli, then a 22-year-old aerial photographer third class, was one of seven Navy photographers selected to document Shepard's recovery.

Shepard's 15-minute suborbital flight was a small achievement compared to the
one-orbit flight of Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut and the first space traveler a few weeks earlier. Still, Capt. Ralph Weymouth, Lake Champlain's commanding officer, noted in a news release that "from our ship, the news spread around the world. The U.S. had succeeded in space."

It was chance that placed Vitulli on board Lake Champlain. He had graduated from New
York City-based New York Institute of Photography in 1960, and felt the Navy would give him additional experience in photography, though he had been working professionally for the past three years.

"I wanted a large ship with a photo lab," Vitulli said. "The Lake Champlain pulled
into dock in Brooklyn, and a friend arranged for me to be signed aboard."

The aircraft carrier practiced recovering monkeys sent up in similar capsules, he
said. However, due to the secretive nature of the manned space program at that time,
Vitulli - and other crew members - didn't know that their ship would be the one used for Shepard's recovery until the last possible instant.

In addition to photographing the recovery, Vitulli also photographed the exterior and
interior of the capsule.

"It was cramped," he said, curling up in a ball on a recliner in his living room as
a demonstration.

"You look at that (capsule) and then you look at (the space shuttle) Enterprise, and
you say, "Oh! How can that be?'�" Vitulli said. "The instruments were crude, and you
can't believe someone went up in space in something like that."

Following six years in the Navy, Vitulli continued working in photography, for
corporations and for the government. Now retired, he said it was a natural progression from photography to painting, though he still does both.

"Whatever I paint, I have photographs as a reference," Vitulli said. "For Shepard's painting I used five different photographs."

Shepard's brief time on Lake Champlain would be the only time Vitulli would see him, although he kept in touch with letters and birthday cards.

"There was a Civil Air Patrol convention in Washington, D.C. where he was the
speaker," Vitulli said. "I couldn't make it, though."

Shepard retired from the Navy and from NASA in 1974, and died in 1998 from leukemia.

posted 05-05-2006 08:23 AM               

I hung on every word, picture, sound, and wished I could be standing somewhere on that beach in Florida to be able to take in the excitement that I just couldn't explain I had for this new world we were about to enter. Better yet, to be part of it all in some way.

MAN.....I miss the romance of it all!

[This message has been edited by ejectr (edited May 05, 2006).]

posted 05-05-2006 11:41 AM               

I somehow believe he was cooler than a lot of us!!

posted 05-05-2006 01:58 PM               

I'm glad the lit the candle and lit the fire in all of us!

posted 05-05-2006 02:33 PM               

That's quite a story! If it's not prying to ask you, what connection to Admiral Shepard did your family have that he visited your motel room to tell his story weeks after it ocurred?

posted 05-05-2006 03:14 PM               

Godspeed to the Admiral and his Lady and thank you.

posted 05-05-2006 09:27 PM               

But, since you did ask about my dad..... my father was one of the first biologists who was asked by NASA to come work on Project Mercury. His job, simply put, was to put Shepard and Glenn into space and bring them home--alive. He also helped to organize and establish NASA's first Office of Public Affairs, receiving a special award in 1962 from NASA Administrator James Webb. (As a sideline, there is a very short documentary film that premiered last Dec. in North Carolina, called "MicroGravity," and in the film my father is pictured and mentioned briefly, along with NASA's award to him. The film is still only showing in small film festivals in the U.S., but perhaps someday you might see it.)

Anyway, this thread is supposed to be about Mr. Shepard, and here I'm blabbing on about my father! My apologies. But, ejectr, that was why we were living there in a motel and why I had the unbelievable fortune to watch Shepard's launch as close as I did, from the beach in my father's arms!

To clarify one thing though, about the motel visit... I believe I typed "there" and not "three" in my earlier post... anyway, I don't remember the exact date of Shepard's long visit to us in our motel room, (being 4 years old then, I didn't have a calendar yet!) but it was definitely early one afternoon in the time span after his flight but before Glenn's flight. And, it wasn't only Mr. Shepard who visited us that afternoon---- it was both Mr. Shepard and Mr. Glenn! I'll never forget it as long as I live, sheesh!! Mr. Glenn was utterly charming, just such a beautiful gentleman, and my mother just glowed as she and my father and Mr. Glenn talked and talked and talked. I remember they did most of the talking all afternoon, business and otherwise, and that was just fine with me... I was perfectly content sitting on Mr. Shepard's lap all afternoon, while he stared at my eyes and I stared at his... part of the time sitting there with him I made him several crayon drawings, the best that I could, and all the while he talked to me all about himself and what it had been like to go up into space. He made a HUGE impression on me that afternoon, to say the least.... I definitely knew that I was sitting in the lap of someone who had done something that no other American had ever done before. He LOOKED perfectly normal, with eyes like mine and the biggest teeth only inches from my face, smiling... but, he had done something totally extraordinary and I was sitting in the lap of that! And, he let me sit there, inspired, all afternoon.

posted 05-05-2006 10:16 PM               

I'm also proud of the material on Shepard's flight on our DVD set, and the production of the Mercury set probably had a more profound effect on me than maybe any other. If ever there was the opening of a new frontier... and the courage to meet it... it is embodied in the original seven and Project Mercury.

posted 05-06-2006 05:56 AM               

Thank you for relating that story. That's pretty awesome. You are obviously proud of your Dad and rightfully so. Your time with Mr. Shepard and Mr. Glenn will always be a cherished memory of yours. How lucky you are to have had that opportunity.

posted 05-06-2006 10:37 AM            

I was lucky to meet Alan Shepard at a heart foundation luncheon and he graciously signed a number of articles. I also helped him and a Spacehab engineer with some information (names/addresses mainly) for a Spacehab misison that was due launch some years from that event as it turned out.

He recounted his famous lunar golf shot - poignant as he was in the 'home' of golf - Scotland. I understand that he was in Scotland to do some golfing . He is just one of several astronauts who have been Scotland to paly golf.

posted 05-06-2006 11:06 AM               

Thanks for your kind words. When I think of how much I have learned from you and everyone on this site, reading all the posts over time, wow! So I guess I was just hoping that something in my experience with Shepard might add something new for someone else too. Thanks for your response. And you're totally right-- I AM very proud of my late-father.

posted 05-06-2006 11:45 AM            

Was it 'live coverage'? I can't remember as I was still 14 years old then. But,if live, what I wonder is how did the BBC achieve this ?

Did they use signals bouncing off Echo-1?

Submarine cable?

Or was it that - because I was still young -
maybe it seemed 'live' when in fact may have been filmed and jetted across ?

I certainly remember the Telstar Goonhilly,UK to USa and back live tv transmissions a few months later - which was heralded as the first live satellite transmission. But I distinctly remember seeing the "cherry picker" and the rocket top off gases exhausting from side up Mercury Redstone before Shepard launched. The coverage seemed to last ages ?

Any other UK readers remember?

Phill

posted 05-07-2006 06:21 AM               

I have tried to contact you at your E-mail address ([email protected]), but my E-mail has been returned. I would like more information about Mr. Vitulli.

I located your article on the website of the Ashbury Park Press, but there is no other E-mail address given. Please contact me.

Bill York