Walter M. “Wally” Schirra Jr., who followed his barnstorming parents into the sky as a Navy combat pilot and the only astronaut to fly in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs, has died. He was 84.
Although he never walked on the moon, Schirra laid some of the groundwork that made the lunar landings possible and won the space race for the United States.
Schirra died of a heart attack at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, Calif., said Ruth Chandler Varonfakis, a family friend and spokeswoman for the San Diego Aerospace Museum.
In 1962, the former Navy test pilot became the fifth American in space – behind Alan Shepard, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, John Glenn and Scott Carpenter – and the third American to orbit the Earth, circling the globe six times in a flight that lasted more than nine hours.
Schirra returned to space in 1965 as commander of Gemini 6. Some 185 miles above Earth, he guided his two-man capsule to within a few feet of Gemini 7 in the first rendezvous of two spacecraft in orbit.
On his third and final flight, aboard Apollo 7 in 1968, he helped set the stage for the landing of men on moon during the summer of 1969.
Of the original seven Mercury astronauts, only Glenn and Carpenter are still alive.
“He was a practical joker, but he was a fine fellow and a fine aviator,” Carpenter recalled Thursday. “He will be sorely missed in our group.”
Schirra blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Oct. 3, 1962, aboard the Sigma 7 Mercury spacecraft. “I’m having a ball up here drifting,” Schirra said from space before making a perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
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.
The following year, Schirra left NASA and retired from the Navy with the rank of captain, having logged more than 295 hours in space. He became a commentator with CBS.
Born in Hackensack, N.J., Schirra seemed destined 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 U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
Schirra flew 90 combat missions during the Korean War. He was credited with shooting down one Soviet MiG-15 and possibly a second. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross and two Air Medals.
In one of his last interviews, last month with The Associated Press, Schirra said he was struck by the fragility of Earth and the lack of borders.
“I left Earth three times. I found no place else to go. Please take care of Spaceship Earth,” he said.
Gordon Scott played Tarzan in ’50s movies
BALTIMORE – Gordon Scott, a handsome, muscular actor who portrayed an “intelligent and nice” Tarzan in 1950s movies, has died. He was 80.
Scott, who had been living in a working class section of south Baltimore, died Monday at Johns Hopkins Hospital of post-heart surgery complications, a hospital spokesman said.
Scott made 24 movies including “Tarzan and the Lost Safari” (1957), “Tarzan’s Fight for Life” (1958), “Tarzan and the Trappers” (1958), “Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure” (1959) and “Tarzan the Magnificent” (1960).
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