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Walter Schirra

Wally Schirra
NASA Astronaut
Nationality	American
Born	March 12, 1923 Hackensack, New Jersey
Died	May 3 2007 (aged 84) La Jolla, California
Other occupation	Test Pilot
Rank	Captain, USN
Space time	12d 7h 12m
Selection	1959 NASA Group
Missions	Mercury 8, Gemini 6A, Apollo 7
Mission insignia

Walter Marty Schirra, Jr. (March 12, 1923 – May 3, 2007) was one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts chosen for the Project Mercury, America's first effort to put men in space. He was the only man to fly in all of America's first three space programs (Mercury, Gemini and Apollo). He logged a total of 295 hours and 15 minutes in space.

Biography

The family name Schirra is originally from the Valle Onsernone, in Canton Ticino, the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland.

Schirra was born into an aviation family in Hackensack, New Jersey. Schirra's father, Walter M. Schirra, Sr., went to Canada during World War I and earned his pilot rating. He later became a barnstormer. Schirra's mother, Florence Leach Schirra, went along on her husband's barnstorming tours and performed wing walking stunts. By the time he was 15, Wally was flying his father's airplane. Schirra was a Boy Scout and earned the rank of First Class in Troop 36 in Oradell, New Jersey.^[1]

Schirra graduated from Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, New Jersey and attended the New Jersey Institute of Technology in 1941, where he was a member of Sigma Pi Fraternity. He attended the US Naval Academy and graduated in 1945. He was commissioned as an officer in the United States Navy, serving the final months of World War II aboard the battle cruiser USS Alaska. After the war ended, he trained as a pilot at NAS Pensacola and joined a carrier fighter squadron. He became only the second naval aviator to log 1,000 hours in jet aircraft.

Upon the outbreak of the Korean War, Schirra was dispatched to South Korea as an exchange pilot on loan to the US Air Force. He served as a flight leader with the 136th Bomb Wing, and then as operations officer with the 154th Fighter Bomber Squadron. He flew 90 combat missions between 1951 and 1952, mostly in F-84s. Schirra was credited with downing one MiG-15 and damaging two others. Schirra received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with an oak leaf cluster for his service in Korea. After his tour in Korea, Schirra served as a test pilot. At China Lake he tested weapons systems such as the Sidewinder missile and the F7U-3 Cutlass jet fighter. After spending time as a flight instructor and carrier based aviator, he later returned to his test pilot duties and helped evaluate the F-4 fighter for naval service. In the image at left, Schirra is shown taking delivery of a F3H Demon from McDonnell Design Chief, Dave Lewis. They remained good friends, later working together on the McDonnell Mercury 7 program.

On April 2, 1959, Schirra was chosen as one of the original seven American astronauts. He entered Project Mercury and was assigned the specialty area involving life support systems.

On October 3, 1962, Schirra became the fifth American in space, piloting the Mercury 8 (Sigma 7) on a six-orbit mission lasting 9 hours, 13 minutes, and 11 seconds. The capsule attained a velocity of 17,557 miles per hour and an altitude of 175 statute miles, and landed within four miles of the main Pacific Ocean recovery ship.

On December 15, 1965, Schirra flew into space a second time in Gemini 6A with Tom Stafford, rendezvousing with astronauts Frank Borman and James Lovell, Jr. in Gemini 7. This was the first rendezvous of two manned spacecraft in earth orbit. The two vehicles, however, were not capable of actually docking. Gemini 6 landed in the Atlantic Ocean the next day, while Gemini 7 continued on to a record-setting 14-day mission.

While on the Gemini mission, Schirra attracted notoriety for playing "Jingle Bells" on a four-hole Hohner harmonica he had smuggled on board, and a "Wally Schirra" commemorative model was later produced.

On October 11, 1968, Schirra became the first man to fly in space three times on his final flight as commander of Apollo 7, the first manned flight in the Apollo program, which occurred after a fatal fire during tests of Apollo 1. The three-man crew, including Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham, spent eleven days in earth orbit, performed rendezvous exercises with the upper stage of the Saturn 1-B launch vehicle that rocketed them into space and provided the first live television pictures from inside a U.S. manned spacecraft (other than an experimental broadcast during the flight of Gordon Cooper) for which he received an Emmy.

During the Apollo 7 mission, Schirra caught what was perhaps the most famous cold in NASA history.[1] He took Actifed to relieve his symptoms upon the advice of the flight surgeon. His grumpy behaviour served as a distraction to the flight controllers and this behaviour may have led him to never fly in space again. His crew never flew in space again as well. Years later, he became a spokesman for Actifed and would appear in television commercials advertising the product.^[2]

During later Apollo missions he served as a news consultant, often being interviewed by Walter Cronkite on CBS News.

Schirra's logbooks show a total of 4,577 hours flight time (295 in space) and 267 carrier landings.

He died on May 3, 2007 of a heart attack at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, California.^[3] A memorial service for Schirra was held on May 22 at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in California. The ceremony concluded with a 21-gun salute and a flyover by three F-18s. Schirra was cremated; his ashes will be committed to the sea from a Navy vessel at a future date.

Wally Schirra was portrayed by Lance Henriksen in the film The Right Stuff and by Mark Harmon in the miniseries From the Earth to the Moon.

Definition of a space rendezvous

Schirra stated a clear definition of a space rendezvous. He said:

"Somebody said ... when you come to within three miles, you've rendezvoused. If anybody thinks they've pulled a rendezvous off at three miles, have fun! This is when we started doing our work. I don't think rendezvous is over until you are stopped - completely stopped - with no relative motion between the two vehicles, at a range of approximately 120 feet. That's rendezvous! From there on, it's stationkeeping. That's when you can go back and play the game of driving a car or driving an airplane or pushing a skateboard — it's about that simple."^[4]

Notes

References

• Wally Schirra & Richard N. Billings, "Schirra's Space", 1988 ISBN 1-55750-792-9
• Wally Schirra, Richard L. Cormier, and Phillip R. Wood with Barrett Tillman, Wildcats to Tomcats, Phalanx, 1995. ISBN 1-883809-07-X
• Robert Godwin, Ed. "Sigma 7: The NASA Mission Reports", 2003 ISBN 1-894959-01-9
• Robert Godwin, Ed. "Gemini 6: The NASA Mission Reports", 2000 ISBN 1-896522-61-0
• Robert Godwin, Ed. "Apollo 7: The NASA Mission Reports", 2000 ISBN 1-896522-64-5

See also

• Space rendezvous

External links

• Official website
• NASA long biography
• NASA short biography

1968 in science Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. Donn F. Eisele Electronic control system for the Lunar Landing Training vehicle Francis French Gus Grissom I Dream of Jeannie List of astronauts by selection List of human spaceflights, 1960s List of Korean War veterans

Mark Harmon May 2007 in science Mercury Seven Mercury-Atlas 8 Project Gemini Project Mercury Space rendezvous The Astronaut USS John Paul Jones (DD-932) More results