Pioneer astronaut Wally Schirra dies at 84

Laying the groundwork
Schirra blasted off from Cape Canaveral on Oct. 3, 1962, aboard the Sigma 7 Mercury spacecraft for his first flight into space. “I’m having a ball up here drifting,” Schirra said from space before making a perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

His Gemini mission represented a major step forward in the nation’s space race with the Soviet Union, proving that two ships could dock in space.

Kraft said Schirra showed great poise during a launch attempt for the Gemini flight, when the spacecraft’s booster ignited but shut down two seconds later.

Schirra and Stafford would have been killed in a massive explosion had the launch vehicle risen just a few centimeters, and Kraft said Schirra would have been warranted in triggering a launch ejection, but instead, he held steady, and the launch went off OK a few days later.

Schirra’s Apollo mission in October 1968 restored the nation’s confidence in the space program, which had been shaken a year earlier when three astronauts, including Grissom, were killed in a fire on the launch pad.

The Apollo 7 crew shot into space atop a Saturn rocket, a version of which would later carry men to the moon. But Schirra and his two fellow crew members were grumpy for most of the 11-day trip. All three developed bad colds that proved to be a major nuisance in zero gravity. (Years later, Schirra appeared in a TV commercial for the cold remedy he took.)

Life beyond NASA
Schirra left NASA a year after Apollo 7 and retired from the Navy with the rank of captain, having logged more than 295 hours in space. He became a commentator with CBS.

“Mostly it’s lousy out there,” Schirra said in 1981 on the occasion of the first space shuttle flight. “It’s a hostile environment, and it’s trying to kill you. The outside temperature goes from a minus 450 degrees to a plus 300 degrees. You sit in a flying Thermos bottle.”

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Born in Hackensack, N.J., Schirra was practically bred to fly. His father was a fighter pilot during World War I and later barnstormed at county fairs with Schirra’s mother, who sometimes stood on the wing of a biplane during flights.

Schirra took his first flight with his father at age 13 and already knew how to fly when he left home for the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

Schirra flew 90 combat missions during the Korean War. He was credited with shooting down one Soviet MiG and possibly a second. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross and two Air Medals.

In 1984, he moved to the San Diego suburb of Rancho Santa Fe, serving on corporate boards and as an independent consultant. His favorite craft became the Windchime, a 36-foot sailboat.

In one of his last interviews, last month with The Associated Press, Schirra said he was struck by the fragility of Earth and the absence of borders.

“I left Earth three times. I found no place else to go. Please take care of Spaceship Earth,” he said.

Survivors include his wife, Josephine, daughter Suzanne and son Walter Schirra III.

This report was supplemented by information from MSNBC.com.

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