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:There was also a Member of Parliament by the same
name, see William Shepherd (UK politician)|William
Shepherd

William M. Shepherd (born July 26 1949) is an
American astronaut who served as commander of the
Expedition One crew on the International Space
Station.

Shepherd was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He
graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1971 with
a degree in aerospace engineering. After basic
training, he became a U.S. Navy SEALs|Navy SEAL.
Later he obtained postgraduate degrees in
engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.

Shepherd was selected for the NASA astronaut corps
in 1984. In 1986 his Navy SEAL training proved
unexpectedly useful to NASA as he participated in
salvage operations of the Space Shuttle Challenger
after its STS-51-L|destruction. Shepherd then
served as a mission specialist on three space
shuttle flights: mission STS-27 in 1988, mission
STS-41 which deployed the Ulysses
(spacecraft)|Ulysses probe in 1990 and mission
STS-52 in 1992.

In 1993, Shepherd was assigned to program
management for the International Space Station.
From October 31, 2000, to March 21, 2001, he and
Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergey
Krikalev served as the first crew stationed at the
ISS in Expedition 1.

Shepherd was awarded the Congressional Space Medal
of Honor in 2003.