Walter M. Schirra, Captain, US Navy retired, one of the original astronauts, and the only one to fly on all three of the initial manned space flight vehicles, Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo, has launched on his final mission.
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5 comments
Sigh. The heroes of my childhood are rapidly departing this earth in a different way. I remember sitting in classrooms full of students, our attention fixed on the radio… yes, radio is all we had in the classrooms, for the earliest missions in the Mercury days… awaiting news of the launches, awaiting the words of the astronauts themselves. I remember as if it were yesterday. And now another great one is gone. R.I.P., Wally Schirra… what a career he had.
He did some one off things, like being in the Navy, but flying with the Air Force in Korea. Test pilots are all weird, or they wouldn’t get into brand new aircraft. He was that rarest of birds – an old bold pilot.
R.I.P., Wally Schirra thanks for the excitement and memories. These guys were my heroes growing up and they stimulated a lot of my love of science and space. Our lives would be much shallower without them.
Fooey, and at the rate the NASA budget is getting cut – may be all the astronauts of our youth will pass by before any new ones earn their wings. 🙁
They were a great group, the original Mercury Seven astronauts, and an inspiration, Fallenmonk.
Less than two years to go, and we can change that, Karen.