Wally Schirra has passed away

[Franz von Werra]

It is with sadness that I announce the passing of Col. Walter M. Schirra, USN. He was 84. One who had "the right stuff".

Wally Schirra

Astronaut who flew in all three of America's earliest manned space programmes

Published: 07 May 2007



Walter Marty Schirra, astronaut: born Hackensack, New Jersey 12 March 1923; married 1946 Josephine Frasier (one son, one daughter); died La Jolla, California 3 May 2007.
Wally Schirra was one of the human cornerstones of the early American space programme, a hard-bitten, professional flyer who loved "pushing the envelope" - both in terms of the latest technology and making his opinion heard. One of the original seven astronauts selected by Nasa in 1959, Schirra undoubtedly possessed what Tom Wolfe described as "the right stuff" - a focused determination to overtake the early Soviet superiority in space and win the race to the Moon.
Despite being the only astronaut to fly in all three of America's pioneering space programmes - Mercury, Gemini and Apollo - Schirra was more interested in the success of his missions than in pleasing his bosses or grabbing the headlines. He knew how to work hard and play hard and although he had a reputation as a party animal and a practical joker, he never allowed this side of his character to distract him from the enterprise in hand.
To his disappointment, Schirra had to wait patiently for his turn to fly in space after Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter led the way. Assigned to the penultimate mission in the Mercury programme, he was determined to make it the best yet. Schirra's attitude was exemplified by his naming his spacecraft Sigma 7, after the Greek letter used by mathematicians to denote summation and a symbol of engineering excellence. The astronaut was determined that Mercury 8 would demonstrate to the world the capabilities of his capsule and the piloting skills of its occupant.
Given a longer flight than his predecessors, Schirra would be the first astronaut to spend time out of touch with ground control. Learning from previous mistakes, he ensured that the flight plan included the minimal number of manoeuvres, with plenty of time allocated for each activity.
Like a true pilot, Schirra took over manual control of his capsule whenever possible and loved every minute of the six-orbit mission. "I'm having a ball up here," he informed the listeners down below. Sigma 7 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, about five miles from the waiting aircraft carrier, and to everyone's astonishment, the spacecraft's fuel tanks were still almost 80 per cent full.
Now a worldwide celebrity, Schirra was given a ticker-tape parade and invited to the White House. He then entered wholeheartedly into the two-man Gemini programme, which was intended to prepare the way for lunar landings by practising such vital activities as spacecraft rendezvous, docking and spacewalking.
After serving with Tom Stafford as the backup crew for Gemini 3, the first manned mission in the programme, Schirra prepared to command Gemini 6. Its main objective was to link up with an Agena target vehicle in what would be the first docking between two spacecraft. Unfortunately, while he and Stafford were lying inside the Gemini in anticipation of their imminent launch, their mission came to an abrupt halt when the Atlas-Agena rocket blew up over the Atlantic Ocean.
Nasa officials came up with a risky plan to launch Gemini 7 and then attempt to refurbish the launch pad in record time so that Schirra's spacecraft could join it in orbit. No sooner was Gemini 7 launched on 4 December 1965 than an army of engineers and maintenance staff descended on the pad and, only eight days later, their remarkable team effort culminated with the final countdown for Gemini 6.
To everyone's alarm and dismay, the rocket's engine shut down only a second after ignition. Faced with a potential fireball, Schirra should have triggered the emergency escape mechanism and ejected. Instead, aware that such action would destroy the spacecraft and doom any chance of flying, he quickly assessed the situation and decided it was safe to stay onboard. His courageous action, for which he was subsequently awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, ensured that Gemini 6 could fly another day.
It was third time lucky on 15 December when Gemini 6 finally lifted off from Cape Canaveral. Less than six hours later, Schirra and Stafford pulled alongside their colleagues in Gemini 7. "There seems to be a lot of traffic up here!" Schirra joked. For the next five hours, as they flew around the Earth at 17,000mph, the spacecraft circled each other, occasionally floating only inches apart. With the historic rendezvous accomplished, Gemini 6 splashed down in the Atlantic less than 26 hours after departing from Florida.
In some ways, Schirra's third and final orbital flight was even more traumatic, following on from the pad fire on 27 January 1967 which killed three astronauts during a countdown test involving the new Apollo capsule and Saturn launch vehicle. The board of inquiry discovered innumerable examples of poor design and shoddy workmanship.
Schirra was appointed to command the next mission, seated alongside two rookies, Don Eisele and Walter Cunningham. Dubbed Apollo 7, it was essentially a shakedown flight that would evaluate the changes necessitated by the Apollo 1 tragedy. Although he would almost certainly have been in line to command a lunar landing mission, Schirra decided that this would be his finale.
The crew were determined to iron out the errors that had caused the deaths of three valued companions. Unfortunately, Nasa's PR department also expected the men to entertain the millions of people watching on television. The astronauts' mood plummeted when they came down with bad colds on the first day in orbit. This led Schirra to stage the first mutiny in space when he cancelled a scheduled TV transmission by declaring, "The show is off."
The first TV special from space eventually went ahead, with Schirra's permission, on the third day. Relations with ground control continued to be strained, with complaints about curtailed sleep periods, overwork and "Mickey Mouse" operations. By the time the mission came to an end, Schirra was being called "the biggest bolshie in space".
With the main Apollo spacecraft now rated as Moonworthy, Schirra was ready to move on to other challenges. He left Nasa and the Navy in July 1969, immediately after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the Moon, becoming a popular spokesman for the space programme while co-anchoring CBS TV coverage with Walter Cronkite. However, his initial business ventures proved less successful, and by 1977 he was content to become an independent consultant and external director of several companies. His autobiography, Schirra's Space, was published in 1988.
Commenting on today's US space programme, Schirra recommended returning decision-making powers to the astronauts. "The original seven of us were all strong-willed, independent thinkers, who checked our egos for the good of the team and the programme," he wrote. "But we didn't keep our mouths shut about what we thought was important for the success of our missions."
Schirra's involvement with flying was almost pre-ordained. His father had served as a pilot with the RAF and US Army at the Western Front during the First World War, later wowing the crowds as a stunt pilot at country fairs while his mother walked on the aircraft's wings. Her exploits were only terminated when she discovered that young Walter was on the way.
After taking his first flight alongside his father at the age of six or seven, the boy developed a lifelong obsession with aircraft and automobiles. At the time of Pearl Harbor, he was a student at Newark College of Engineering. In 1942, he was accepted onto a fast-track officer training course at the Annapolis Naval Academy. Commissioned in 1945, he was assigned to the cruiser Alaska, but the war ended before the ship was involved in any action.
Schirra then applied for training as a fighter pilot, receiving his wings in 1948. When the Korean War broke out, he was one of 20 Navy pilots accepted for an exchange programme with the Air Force. Assigned to the 154th Fighter Bomber Squadron, he flew 90 sorties involving low-level bombing and strafing, during which he downed two MiG 15 fighters. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and two Air Medals.
From 1952 to 1954, he served as an engineering pilot at the Naval Ordnance Test Station in China Lake, California. He spent another four years on various assignments at Air Naval Stations in California and on the aircraft carrier Lexington. Finally, in 1958, he was accepted at the Naval Air Test Centre at Patuxent, Maryland.
Within six months of graduating as a test pilot, Schirra was ordered to report to Washington, DC, for assessment as a possible astronaut. The 35-year-old Schirra threw himself into the rigorous series of painful physical examinations, incomprehensible psychological evaluations and plain hard work. Eventually, the list of 110 candidates was whittled down to seven and, in April 1959, Schirra entered the limelight for the first time as the Mercury astronauts were presented to the media and the nation.

Peter Bond
http://news.independent.co.uk/people...cle2519075.ece

[fsbofk]

Just a nit-pick on this otherwise fine article . . . one doesn't actually "push the envelope" (unless someone across the table is asking for it !), but instead "pushes the edge of the envelope."