(Photo: USNS Alan Shepard slides backwards into San Diego Bay during a christening ceremony held at the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) on December 6, 2006. Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Patrick M. Kearney .)
The U.S. Navy's newest cargo ship, named for the late Mercury and Apollo astronaut Alan Shepard, was delivered Tuesday.
The vessel will deliver food, ammunition, fuel and other provisions from shore to combat ships in the Pacific fleet, according to manufacturer General Dynamics NASSCO.
Shepard was the first American man shot into space. His 1961 trip inside a cramped Mercury capsule started the United States and the Soviet Union on a race to the moon.
He died in 1998.
The ship named in his honor is the third of 11 new dry cargo-ammunition ships expected for the Navy.
The Alan Shepard has a cargo capacity of more than 10,000 tons. It will remain in San Diego for about three months for crew familiarization and final outfitting.
Construction of the 689-foot-long vessel began in September 2005.
