Alan Shepard’s Balls

Playing golf on the moon

Photo by Sanni Sahil on Unsplash

Astronaut Alan Shepard died on July 21, 1998, at the age of 74. “So far I’m the only person to have hit a golf ball on the moon. Probably will be for some time,” he told NASA a few months prior to his death, in February. “What a neat place to whack a golf ball.”

Shepard was the first American in space. He was onboard the Freedom 7 when it took off from Cape Canaveral in…