A Final Tribute
To Wally
By: Tracy Kornfeld
Wally and I had just recently started working on a new video project.
The above was the first prototype using photos from his most recent trip to
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL.
Wally loved the idea and the music, so we're just going to leave it as-is,
as Wally first saw it.
Keep your feet dry, my good friend. Thanks for everything!
-tracy
(Photography by: Emmett Given)
Walter M. Schirra, Jr., is the only
astronaut who flew in all three of the nation’s
pioneering space programs, Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.
He was born in Hackensack,
NJ. on March 12, 1923. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1945
and from naval flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, FL in 1948. He
served as a carrier based fighter pilot and operations officer and then attended
the Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, MD. During the Korean War he flew
F-84 Thunder jets as an exchange pilot with the U.S. Air Force.
Schirra, call sign ‘Skyray,’
was selected by NASA as one of the original seven Mercury astronauts in 1959
along with Gordon Cooper, Scott Carpenter, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Gus
Grissom and Deke Slayton. He flew on the fifth Project Mercury flight, orbiting
the earth in his Sigma 7 capsule six times on Oct. 3, 1962. Schirra had chosen
the name Sigma because it symbolized engineering precision and a precisely
engineered flight was the result, ending with a splashdown just five miles from
the carrier Kearsarge in the Pacific Ocean. True to his Navy background, Schirra
elected to remain aboard the capsule until it was lifted to the deck of the
carrier.
Schirra commanded Gemini
6, flying with astronaut Tom Stafford. They were to have tracked down and
docked with an Agena satellite, but the Agena exploded after liftoff. The flight
plan was changed, calling for Gemini 6 to rendezvous with Gemini 7, a 14- day
flight manned by Frank Borman and James Lovell. Gemini 7 was launched Dec. 4,
1965. Gemini 6 was to take off Dec. 12 but was aborted when the Titan 2 booster
rocket engine shut down after ignition. Schirra had the option of ejecting
himself and Stafford, but chose to remain aboard the spacecraft while launch
control confirmed that the booster was not going to explode. Schirra uttered
his now famous line to launch control; "We are just lying here breathing.”
Three days later Schirra and Stafford were launched. They caught up with Gemini
7, flew formation with it, as close as one foot, for five hours before
separating and coming home.
After the Apollo 1 fire, Schirra was assigned commander
of Apollo 7, the first manned flight of the Apollo spacecraft and the
Huntsville, Alabama developed Saturn IB rocket. He and his crewmates Walter
Cunningham and Donn Eisele successfully checked all the Apollo systems during
the 11-day mission qualifying the spacecraft for later moon missions.
Captain Schirra retired
from the Navy and NASA in 1969. He served as an officer and director of several
companies and was an on-the -air colleague of CBS-TV's Walter Cronkite during
the Apollo moon landing missions. He along with Alan Shepard was instrumental
in starting the Space Camp program in Huntsville in the early 1980’s. Schirra
was inducted along with his fellow Mercury astronauts into the U.S. Astronaut
Hall of Fame in Florida in 1989. John Glenn and Scott Carpenter are
the last living members of the Mercury 7. Gus Grissom died in 1967, Deke
Slayton in 1993, Alan Shepard in 1998, Gordon Cooper, October 4, 2004,
and Wally Schirra, May 3, 2007.
A new book entitled, The
REAL Space Cowboys, authored by Ed Buckbee with Schirra released in May
2005, highlights the Mercury astronauts and their contribution to America’s
space program. The book has been featured at signings in California, Florida,
Ohio, New Jersey, Kansas, Texas, New York and Washington, DC.
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