Wally Schirra

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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 person 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.

Navy experience

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 right, 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.

NASA experience

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.

Mercury

On October 3, 1962, Schirra became the fifth American in space, piloting the Mercury-Atlas 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.

Gemini

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.

Apollo

On October 11, 1968, Schirra became the first person 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-person 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.

Writing Career

In 2005 Schirra co-authored the book The Real Space Cowboys with Ed Buckbee. The book is an account of the 'Mercury Seven' astronauts. It follows them through the process of selection for the program, their entire careers, and into retirement. Also, Wernher von Braun, NASA, Space Camp, and the U.S. Space and Rocket Center are given special attention.

Schirra was also a major contributor to the 2007 book In the Shadow of the Moon , which captured his final published thoughts on his life and career.

Death

He died on May 3, 2007 of a heart attack due to malignant mesothelioma at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, California.^[3],^[4]

Schirra on screen

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

"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."^[5]

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
• Ed Buckbee with Wally Schirra, "The Real Space Cowboys", 2005 ISBN 1-894959-21-3

See also

• Space rendezvous

External links

• Official website
• NASA long biography
• NASA short biography

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