American naval aviator, test pilot, flag officer, and NASA astronaut who in 1961 became the second person, and the first American, in space. This Mercury flight was designed to enter space, but not to achieve orbit. Ten years later, at age 47 the oldest astronaut in the program, Shepard commanded the Apollo 14 mission, piloting the lander to the most accurate landing of the Apollo missions. He became the fifth person to walk on the Moon, and the only Mercury astronaut to walk on the moon. During the mission he hit two golf balls on the lunar surface.

Outstanding 11x14 color photo showing the American flag on the moon taken from the lunar module.  The photo has been attached to a 16x20 mat board and then inscribed and signed by Shepard on the lower white mat.  Shepard has penned: To Collins Byrd, whose rates are as far away as this flag but who is a most genial host! Alan Shepard.  He has added: The moon 2/5/71 at right side of lower border (referring to the day Apollo 14 landed on the moon.) below the photo. The mat, signature and inscription are in outstanding condition and would make a superb display piece.

Collins Bird was the owner of the Georgetown Inn on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington, D.C. When astronauts and NASA officials were in the nation’s capital, they stayed at Bird’s hotel. Apollo astronaut James Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger wrote in “Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13” (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), “Ever since 1962, when Wally Schirra came to town for a medal and a handshake from President Kennedy following his successful nine-hour Mercury flight, the inn had served as unofficial host to many a NASA dignitary. The place was out-of-the-way enough to offer the privacy the country’s space pioneers craved, and new enough to offer the poshness they had come to enjoy. Collins Bird, the hotel’s first and only owner, had his inn done up in a subdued colonial style…”