Did Alan Shepard give a golf ball he took to the moon to his barber? – Houston Public Media

Courtesy: Carlos Villagomez

Astronaut Alan Shepard was the first American in space and the fifth person to walk on the moon.

Despite that illustrious resume, he might be best remembered by many of us for the time he hit two golf balls on the moon in 1971 during the Apollo 14 mission.

While those two golf balls didn’t land terribly far from where Shepard struck them, they did manage to lodge themselves firmly in American lore — and in the history of the space program.

But it’s the story of another golf ball that may or may not have flown to the moon with him that’s at the heart of a new book called The Barber, The Astronaut, and The Golf Ball.

The book details the story of that third ball and digs into whether it really flew to the moon.

But, more importantly, the book celebrates the story of the friendship it represents, the friendship between Shepard and his barber, Carlos Villagomez.

In the 1960s, Villagomez was cutting hair in Houston at the same time the space race was accelerating and what is now known as the Johnson Space Center was being built down the road in Clear Lake. And someone told him he ought to set up shop out there to meet the growing demand as more people began living and working in that area.

So, Villagomez started cutting hair out of a rented space in a Holiday Inn, and eventually he set up his own barber shop in a tiny building in Webster, just off NASA Parkway on Old Galveston Road.

He later built a beer garden on the adjacent property, and that’s where, decades later, Villagomez and other veterans of Houston’s aerospace scene occasionally meet up for lunch and to swap stories.

That’s also where Houston Matters producer Michael Hagerty and producer Todd Hulslander had the chance to listen in as Villagomez held court explaining how he first became friends with Shepard, what the astronaut was like, and the special hair treatments Villagomez gave him.

Michael Hagerty/Houston Public Media

Villagomez also tells how, immediately after returning from the moon after Apollo 14, Shepard gave him a signed golf ball, which he assumed at least flew on that mission to the moon.

However, Villagomez said he never got around to asking the astronaut where the ball had actually been, and he stowed it away for safe keeping.

In 1998, Shepard passed away, and it would seem the ball’s authenticity is lost to history. Or was it?

Over the years, Villagomez talked about the golf ball with his friends, including husband and wife Ed Supkis and Barbara Radnofsky — themselves both children of NASA employees who’d grown up in the area. At one point, Villagomez entrusted the golf ball to them, which they tucked away in a safe deposit box.

Eventually, they decided to try and find out the ball’s story while also documenting and paying homage to the friendship between the astronaut and the barber who cut his hair.

In their book, they tell stories of Carlos’ life and also see what they can find out about the ball’s story. For that, they enlisted the help of a space memorabilia expert, who said without any further paper trail or documentation it’s pretty tough to establish that it ever went to space.

MORE: The Barber, The Astronaut, and The Golf Ball Documentary

But, more importantly, Radnofsky and Supkis say the ball is more important for the friendship it represents and the reminder it provides of the many unknown people and relationships behind the astronauts and the space program we know so well from that historic time in the history of our nation and Greater Houston.

A book launch for The Barber, The Astronaut, and The Golf Ball will be held Saturday, Oct. 5, at Brazos Bookstore.

Michael Hagerty/Houston Public Media