Walter M. Schirra Jr., One of the Original Seven Astronauts, Is Dead

ABC News ^ | May 3, 2007 | By NED POTTER

[JerseyJohn61]

“The Right Stuff” is going in the VCR after the Met game
tonight. One of my all time faves.

My older sister had the great fortune of meeting him back
in the 70’, while he was working for nearby JOHN’S MANVILLE.
He was in the lounge of a hotel near an industrial campus.
It was one of my sister’s after-work crew’s normal watering
hole stops.

She claimed that he kept a substantial crowd in continuous
stitches. Also Wowed everyone with his yarns of the space
programs.

Always having been a big space program fan, I remain
jealous of my sister to this day. God love and hold you
Wally. A Great, Great American....JJ61

[Mr. Silverback]

Godspeed to a great American.

[Coleus]

Astronaut Walter Schirra dies at 84

AP

The astronauts of the Apollo 7 crew are shown at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., in this Oct. 11, 1968 file photo. From left to right are R. Walter Cunningham, Commander Walter Schirra, Jr., and Donn F. Eisele. Schirra has died, NASA said Thursday, May 3, 2007.

 Astronaut Walter Schirra dies at 84

 From Oradell to outer space

 Sights & Sounds: Walter Schirra, 1923-2007

Walter M. Schirra Jr., one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts and the first New Jerseyan to travel in space, died Thursday. He was 84.  His family said he died of a heart attack at a hospital in La Jolla, Calif., not far from near his home in Rancho Santa Fe.  Born in Hackensack and raised in Oradell, the irrepressible Schirra, a former Navy test pilot, was the only man to fly on all of NASA's first three space missions -- Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.

On Oct. 3, 1962, he became the fifth American space traveler and the third to orbit Earth when he piloted the Sigma 7 Mercury flight, which encircled the planet six times over 9 hours and 15 minutes.  "I'm having a ball up here drifting," he said during that flight.   Three years later, Schirra commanded Gemini 6, which rendezvoused with the already orbiting Gemini 7 -- the first rendezvous of two orbiting spacecraft.

And in 1968, Schirra was command pilot on Apollo VII, which paved the way for the first mission to the Moon the following year.  Shea Oakley, executive director of the Aviation Hall of Fame and Museum of New Jersey in Teterboro -- which inducted Schirra in 1982 -- said Schirra was a "unique character" renowned for his sense of humor.

Oakley noted, however, that Schirra wasn't feeling that humorous during the 4.5 million-mile Apollo VII mission because he and his crew mates, R. Walter Cunningham and Donn Eisele, all suffered from bad colds.  "NASA programmed a ton of tests for the astronauts to do, and Schirra stood up to Mission Control and said, Hey, you're making us do too much up here," Oakley said.  "They backed down, because Schirra was the commander of the mission, and he was there, and they weren't."

[PAUL REVERE TODAY]

Yes, I know they gave Americans a great deal of pride at that time, even though I did not experience it. They were heroes and explorers. I love that NASA era; i romanticize it.