Thursday, May 03, 2007

WALLY SCHIRRA, 84

One of the heroes of America's 20th century. An original Mercury Seven astronaut. The only man to fly on all three of NASA's early space missions -- Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.

The Associated Press notes that Schirra in 1962 became the third American to orbit the Earth. He did six orbits. His flight lasted more than nine hours.

MIT gets the point, beating Brother Richard by mere minutes.

3 comments:

Desdinova said...

Wally told my maid to stock up on Tang.

Anonymous said...

I once visited the Space Museum in Huntsville, AL. Hanging on the men's room wall at the museum is Wally's fecal containment bag from one of his flights. Unused, of course.

Ah, the things one remembers from vacations....

Anonymous said...

Wally was preceded in death by his parents, Ward and June. Survivors include a brother, Beaver Schirra, and longtime friends Lumpy Armstrong and Eddie "Gee That's A Lovely Spacesuit, Mrs. Schirra" Aldrin.