Wally Schirra
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| Astronaut | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | American |
| Born | March 12, 1923 Hackensack, New Jersey |
| Occupation1 | Test Pilot |
| Rank | Captain, USN |
| Space time | 12d 7h 12m |
| Selection | 1959 NASA Group |
| Mission(s) | Mercury 8, Gemini 6A, Apollo 7 |
| Mission insignia |
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| 1 previous or current | |
Walter Marty Schirra, Jr. (born March 12, 1923 in Hackensack, New Jersey) 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 America's first three space programs: Mercury, Gemini and Apollo and has logged a total of 295 hours and 15 minutes in space.
The family name Schirra is originally from the Valle Onsernone, in Canton Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland.
Wally Schirra was born into an aviation family. 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 graduated from Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, NJ 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 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.
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.
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 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 television pictures from inside a U.S. manned spacecraft for which he received an Emmy.
During the Apollo 7 mission, Schirra caught what was perhaps the most famous cold in NASA history. He took Actifed to relieve his symptoms upon the advice of the flight surgeon. Years later, he became a spokesman for Actifed and would appear in television commercials advertising the product.
Schirra's logbooks show a total of 4,577 hours flight time (295 in space) and 267 carrier landings.
He is currently a semi-retired consultant and lives in Rancho Santa Fe, California with a summer home in Hawaii.
In the 1983 film The Right Stuff Schirra was played by Lance Henriksen. In the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon he was played by Mark Harmon.
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[edit] 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."[1]
[edit] Did you Know?
Schirra has a school names after him in Old Bridge, New Jersey. The Walter M. Schirra Jr. Elementary School. The majority of the elementary schools in the Old Bridge Township Public School System are named after astronauts, such as; A. Shepard, L.G. Cooper, and Vorhees.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Wally Schirra & Richard N. Billings, "Schirra's Space", 1995 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
