Walter "Wally" Schirra
1923-
Official NASA portrait for Schirra's MA-8 mission.
A precocious flier at the age of thirteen, Walter
"Wally"
Schirra went on to become a naval aviator after graduating from the
U.S.
Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. On an exchange program with
the Air Force, he flew ninety combat missions in the Korean War. Later,
he helped develop the Sidewinder missile and the F7U3 fighter aircraft.
He was chosen as one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts in 1959.
Schirra's first flight into space was the
Mercury-Atlas
8 mission, during which he and his spacecraft Sigma 7 orbited
the
Earth six times. His flight ended without the hair-raising conclusions
that seemed to typify the close of other Mercury missions.
His next mission was Gemini VI, a very to-the-point
mission whose primary objective was to rendezvous with the already
orbiting
Gemini VII spacecraft. His flight was delayed two times before it
finally
flew.
With the Apollo 7 mission, Schirra became the only
astronaut to fly in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. His
eleven-day mission was the proving mission for the Apollo spacecraft rising
from the ashes of the Apollo 1 fire.
After retiring from the astronaut corps, Schirra
pursued
a variety of activities, vocations and avocations alike, including
wrangling at a ranch in Colorado.