Walter Marty Schirra, Jr.
(March 12, 1923 – May 3,
2007) was one of the original Mercury
astronauts chosen for the Project
, America's first effort to put humans in space. He was
the only person to fly in all of America's first three space
). He logged a total of 295 hours and
15 minutes in space.
Schirra was the 5th American and the 9th human to ride a rocket
was born into an aviation family in Hackensack, New
Schirra's father, Walter M. Schirra, Sr., went to
Canada during World War I and
earned his pilot rating.
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
was a Boy Scout
and earned the rank of First Class in Troop 36 in Oradell, New
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, Alpha Mu Chapter .
later finished schooling with the navy and received a Bachelor of
Science in aeronautical engineering. He graduated in 1944.
attended the United States Naval Academy and graduated in 1945.
He was commissioned
as an officer in the United States
, serving the final months of World
aboard the battle cruiser USS Alaska
. After the war ended,
he trained as a pilot at NAS Pensacola and joined a carrier fighter squadron.
only the second naval aviator to log 1,000 hours in jet
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
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
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.
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. In the image
at left, Schirra is shown taking delivery of a F3H Demon
from McDonnell Design Chief, Dave Lewis
. They remained good friends,
later working together on the McDonnell Mercury 7 program.
On April 2, 1959, Schirra was chosen as one of the original seven American astronauts
. He entered
and was assigned the
specialty area involving life support systems.
On October 3, 1962, Schirra became the fifth American in space,
piloting the Mercury-Atlas 8
on a six-orbit mission lasting 9 hours, 13
minutes, and 11 seconds. The capsule attained a velocity of and an
altitude of 175 statute miles, and landed within four miles
(6 km) of the main Pacific Ocean recovery ship.
On December 15, 1965, Schirra flew into space a second time in
with Tom Stafford
. During the first launch
attempt, the booster rocket unexpectedly shut down seconds after
ignition. Although mission rules called for the crew to eject from
the spacecraft in that situation, Schirra used his pilot's
judgement and did not eject, which turned out to be the correct
call. The flight launched successfully the next day, conducting the
first manned space rendezvous with astronauts Frank Borman
in Gemini 7
two vehicles, however, were not capable of actually docking.
landed in the Atlantic Ocean the next day, while
continued on to a record-setting 14-day
While on the Gemini mission, Schirra attracted notoriety for
playing "Jingle Bells" on a four-hole Hohner harmonica he had
smuggled on board, and a "Wally Schirra" commemorative model was
On October 11, 1968, Schirra became the first person 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
. The three-person 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
history. He took Actifed
to relieve his
symptoms upon the advice of the flight
. Schirra soon passed the cold to Eisele, and the crew
became known for their grumpy exchanges with Houston. Interaction
with ground controllers became so strained that the crew was taken
out of rotation for future missions, and none of the three flew for
NASA again. Schirra had made the decision to retire before launch,
and left the astronaut corps after the mission. Years later, he
became a spokesman for Actifed and would appear in television
commercials advertising the product.
During later Apollo missions he served as a news consultant, often
being interviewed by Walter Cronkite
News. He co-anchored with Cronkite and
Arthur C. Clarke
the first Apollo
landing on the Moon.
Schirra's logbooks show a total of 4,577 hours flight time (295 in
space) and 267 carrier landings.
In 2008, NASA posthumously awarded Schirra the NASA Distinguished Service
for his Apollo 7 mission.
In 2005 Schirra co-authored the book The Real Space
with Ed Buckbee
. The book is
an account of the 'Mercury Seven' astronauts. It follows them
through the process of selection for the program, their entire
careers, and into retirement. Also, Wernher
von Braun, NASA, Space Camp, and the U.S. Space and Rocket Center are given special attention.
Schirra was also a major contributor to the 2007 book In the Shadow of the
, which captured his final published thoughts on his
life and career.
died on May 3, 2007 of a heart attack due to malignant mesothelioma at Scripps Green Hospital in
A memorial service for Schirra was held on
May 22 at Fort
Rosecrans National Cemetery
in California. The ceremony
concluded with a 21-gun salute and a flyover by three F-18s
. Schirra was cremated and his ashes were
committed to the sea on February 11, 2008. The burial-at-sea
ceremony was held aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan
his ashes were released by Cmdr. Lee Axtell, command chaplain
The Lewis and
Clark class dry cargo ship USNS Wally Schirra
named for Schirra, was christened and launched March 8, 2009.
Schirra on screen
Wally Schirra was portrayed by Lance
in the film The
and by Mark Harmon
in the miniseries From the Earth to the
- NASA 40 year Mercury 7
- CBS Sunday Morning, March 23, 2008
- Office of the Armed Forces Medical Examiner report
- Navy NewsStand - Eye on the Fleet
- Navy NewsStand - Eye on the Fleet
- Wally Schirra & Richard N. Billings, "Schirra's Space",
1988 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
- Ed Buckbee with Wally Schirra, "The Real Space Cowboys", 2005