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Alan Shepard aboard Freedom 7 before the launch in 1961. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Astronaut Alan Shepard’s letter sells for $106,000

Tom Hoepf
Tom Hoepf
Alan Shepard aboard Freedom 7 before the launch in 1961. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Alan Shepard aboard Freedom 7 before the launch in 1961. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

AMHERST, N.H. (AP) – A letter future astronaut Alan Shepard wrote to his parents in New Hampshire about trying out for the “Man in Space” program has been sold for more than $100,000.

RR Auction of Amherst says the rare handwritten letter sold Thursday night for $106,228, about $25,000 more than auction officials had expected.

In the 1959 letter, Shepard, who was born in Derry, N.H., tells his parents that he would volunteer if asked to pilot America’s first mission into space—a job he later won. A rocket-powered suborbital flight on May 5, 1961, made Shepard the first American man in space.

Shepard died in 1998.

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AP-WF-09-23-11 1627GMT