 Walter
Marty Schirra, Jr. (Wally Schirra, 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.
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.
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
6A 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, 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. 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 retired from the Navy and NASA in 1969. He co-authored "The Real Space
Cowboys" with Ed Buckbee, a former NASA public affairs officer and the first
executive director of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. The book highlights the
Mercury astronauts and their contribution to the U.S. space program.
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.
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