Former NASA astronaut Walter Cunningham, who flew on the primary take a look at of the Apollo command module in Earth orbit, has died on the age of 90.
Cunningham’s death on Tuesday (opens in new tab) (Jan. 3) was confirmed by his household.
“We want to specific our immense satisfaction within the life that he lived, and our deep gratitude for the person that he was — a patriot, an explorer, pilot, astronaut, husband, brother and father. The world has misplaced one other true hero, and we’ll miss him dearly,” his household stated in a statement released by NASA (opens in new tab).
Chosen with NASA’s third group of astronauts in 1963, Walter Cunningham grew to become solely the second civilian to fly into space when he launched on the Apollo 7 mission on Oct. 11, 1968. The 11-day flight, which adopted the loss of the Apollo 1 crew in a hearth on the launch pad the 12 months earlier, served as a essential shakedown cruise for the redesigned command module earlier than it might fly astronauts to the moon.
Associated: NASA’s Apollo moon program in pictures
Lifting off with Mercury and Gemini veteran Walter “Wally” Schirra because the mission’s commander and fellow first-time flier Donn Eisele (opens in new tab) as command module pilot, Cunningham’s designation on Apollo 7 was lunar module pilot, though there was no moon lander. Throughout the flight, Cunningham was chargeable for all the spacecraft’s methods, outdoors of these related to launch and navigation.
“We mounted loads of issues [that were wrong with the Apollo 1 command module] and had been in a position to fly a a lot better spacecraft,” stated Cunningham in a 1999 oral history interview (opens in new tab) for NASA. “The one which we flew was nearly excellent! I imply, it was simply — you could not have requested for a greater piece of {hardware} for the primary time.”
Along with being NASA’s first three-person crew to fly into space and the one crewed mission to launch on a Saturn IB rocket (opens in new tab) from Complicated 34 at what it’s as we speak the Cape Canaveral House Power Station in Florida, Apollo 7 was additionally the primary American flight to incorporate reside tv from space. Direct “from the stunning Apollo room excessive atop the whole lot,” as a hand-written card displayed firstly of the primary broadcast, Schirra, Cunningham and Eisele gave the world beneath a have a look at their spacecraft and what it was wish to reside in space.
The “Wally, Walt, and Donn Present” was a powerful hit and earned Cunningham and his Apollo 7 crewmates a particular Emmy award.
The mission was not with out its difficulties, although. The astronauts discovered it was onerous to sleep on condition that one crew member needed to stay awake and energetic always, incessantly disturbing the others. Schirra additionally developed a head chilly, which exasperated his frustrations with Mission Management as extra aims had been added to an already busy begin of the flight.
“When Wally had a chilly, everyone needed to be depressing — and there’s no query that that may make a little bit little bit of distress. However all of us labored by that,” stated Cunningham. “I feel the true drawback was it was the primary mission. We had deliberate it for 11 days, however you do not know how lengthy it should final as a result of one thing might occur and it’s a must to come again. And even the planners and the engineers loaded many of the duties at the start in case [we had] to come back again early.”
Finally, although, Apollo 7 was deemed a success (opens in new tab), giving NASA the boldness to ship the following mission, Apollo 8, to the moon.
“The mission was described as 101% profitable, and that is as a result of they’d added a few detailed take a look at aims and issues on after we had been up there,” stated Cunningham. “So we truly achieved greater than 100% of the aims.”
Cunningham’s first and solely spaceflight ended on Oct. 22, 1968, with he and his Apollo 7 crewmates splashing down within the Atlantic Ocean 10 days, 20 hours, 9 minutes and three seconds after they left Earth.
Ronnie Walter Cunningham was born on March 16, 1932, in Creston, Iowa. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1951 and served on energetic responsibility as a U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot from 1953 till 1956, flying 54 missions as a fighter pilot in Korea.
Cunningham acquired his bachelor’s and grasp’s levels in physics from the College of California, Los Angeles in 1960 and 1961, respectively. He accomplished all the necessities, much less his dissertation, for a doctorate in physics at UCLA whereas working for the RAND Company previous to becoming a member of NASA.
Earlier than the Apollo 1 tragedy, Cunningham, Schirra and Eisele had been first assigned to the second crewed Apollo flight after which, after that mission was canceled, as backups to the Apollo 1 crew. After the fireplace, along with coaching for Apollo 7, the three astronauts had been additionally carefully concerned in monitoring the modifications being made to the command module to make sure an identical catastrophe didn’t occur once more.
Regardless of the success of the Apollo 7 mission, the stress between Schirra (and subsequently your complete crew) with working with Mission Management contributed to not one of the three astronauts flying into space once more. Cunningham ended his profession at NASA serving because the chief of the Skylab department of the flight crew directorate, overseeing the combination of {hardware} with the science experiments deliberate for the orbital workshop.
“I satisfaction myself in my contribution to the space program was actually what I did by way of working with the methods of the [Apollo 7] spacecraft, that and on Skylab,” Cunningham stated. “As a result of lots of people I do know might’ve completed the flying I did, however not very many individuals — I do not imagine — might’ve completed the identical form of insightful considering I did.”
Associated: Facts about NASA’s Apollo program
Cunningham left NASA in 1971 and, after attending Harvard Enterprise Faculty’s Superior Administration Program, went on to change into a businessman, investor and director of a variety of private and non-private firms. He hosted a radio speak present, “Elevate-off To Logic,” and was a frequent lecturer.
Cunningham is credited with beginning a spaceflight custom that continues as we speak. He took the result in have medallions struck for the Apollo 7 crew, which had been flown on the mission after which engraved post-flight with the launch and touchdown dates. These mementos, now often known as the Robbins medallions after the corporate that made them, have been made for each NASA crewed flight since.
In 1977, Cunningham authored “The All-American Boys,” a “no-holds-barred” candid memoir that was broadly praised for revealing the human aspect of the space program. In 1998, he was portrayed by actor Fredric Lehne within the HBO miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon.”
For his service to the nation’s space program, Cunningham was awarded NASA Distinguished and Distinctive Service medals, amongst different honors. He was inducted into the Worldwide House Corridor of Fame on the New Mexico Museum of House Historical past in Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1983; the U.S. Astronaut Corridor of Fame at NASA’s Kennedy House Heart in Florida in 1997; and the Worldwide Air & House Corridor of Fame on the San Diego Air & House Museum in California in 2011.
Cunningham was preceded in dying by his Apollo 7 crewmates. Eisele died in 1987, followed two decades later by Schirra (opens in new tab) in 2007.
Cunningham is survived by his spouse Dot, his sister Cathy Cunningham and his two kids, Brian and Kimberley, from a former marriage to Lo Ella Irby.
Comply with collectSPACE.com (opens in new tab) on Facebook (opens in new tab) and on Twitter at @collectSPACE (opens in new tab). Copyright 2023 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.
