"You've done it in the simulator so many times, you don't have a real sense of being excited when the flight is going on. You're excited before, but as soon as the liftoff occurs, you are busy doing what you have to do"
About this Quote
The line punctures the Hollywood myth that history is made in a sustained blaze of adrenaline. Shepard, talking as an astronaut and test pilot, frames spaceflight as an industrialized discipline: repetition so thorough it pre-empts awe. The simulator doesn’t just teach procedures; it edits the emotional script. By the time liftoff happens, the novelty has been rehearsed out of the body, replaced by checklists, callouts, and muscle memory.
The intent is almost corrective. Shepard is insisting that the heroic moment isn’t the launch itself but the long prelude of training that makes the launch survivable. That’s why the excitement is “before” - in the gap where imagination still has room to run - and why it collapses into work once the rocket moves. The subtext is blunt: in high-stakes environments, feeling too much is a liability. Calm isn’t temperament; it’s engineered.
Context matters. Shepard was one of the first Americans in space, operating in a Cold War spectacle that sold astronauts as mythic frontiersmen. His comment quietly resists that propaganda. It also signals NASA’s culture at the time: performance over personality, competence over charisma, the tight coupling of human bodies to machines. The paradox is what gives the quote its bite: the closer you get to an extraordinary experience, the more it has to be treated as ordinary. Mastery, Shepard suggests, is the ability to let the once-in-a-lifetime feel like just another run-through - because your life depends on it.
The intent is almost corrective. Shepard is insisting that the heroic moment isn’t the launch itself but the long prelude of training that makes the launch survivable. That’s why the excitement is “before” - in the gap where imagination still has room to run - and why it collapses into work once the rocket moves. The subtext is blunt: in high-stakes environments, feeling too much is a liability. Calm isn’t temperament; it’s engineered.
Context matters. Shepard was one of the first Americans in space, operating in a Cold War spectacle that sold astronauts as mythic frontiersmen. His comment quietly resists that propaganda. It also signals NASA’s culture at the time: performance over personality, competence over charisma, the tight coupling of human bodies to machines. The paradox is what gives the quote its bite: the closer you get to an extraordinary experience, the more it has to be treated as ordinary. Mastery, Shepard suggests, is the ability to let the once-in-a-lifetime feel like just another run-through - because your life depends on it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Training & Practice |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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