How first American in space brought a newspaper to the moon MARA BELLABY, Florida Today FacebookTwitterEmail MELBOURNE, Fla. (AP) — When the 363-foot Saturn V rocket ignited its five engines to send the crew of Apollo 14 — including America’s first man in space, Alan Shepard — on their lunar mission, something rather unusual was on board. TODAY, founded by Al Neuharth just five years earlier, was going to the moon. “It was a big deal but shoot, this was TODAY newspaper, we can do anything,” recalled David Baker, whose father, Buddy Baker, was TODAY’s community service director and arranged the paper’s out-of-this-world trip.