Wally Schirra
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‘As It Really Was’: Remembering Apollo 7, OTD in 1968
OTD in 1968, #Apollo7 astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele & Walt Cunningham took the first step in America’s journey to land a man on the #Moon. More
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‘From the Lovely Apollo Room’: 50 Years Since Apollo 7 Brought America’s Lunar Goal Closer (Part 3)
Half a century ago, in October 1968, Project Apollo—the United States’ multi-billion-dollar campaign to plant American boots on the surface of the Moon before the end of the decade—rose from the ashes of despair and triumphantly flew an 11-day mission in low-Earth orbit. Apollo 7 astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walt Cunningham launched atop […] More
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in AmericaSpace, Apollo, Space‘Yabadabadoo’: 50 Years Since Apollo 7 Brought America’s Lunar Goal Closer (Part 2)
Fifty years ago, this month, Apollo 7—America’s first three-person space mission—launched from Pad 34 at Cape Kennedy and spent almost 11 days in low-Earth orbit, testing systems aboard the Command and Service Module (CSM) and clearing a significant hurdle in the nation’s drive to land a man on the Moon before the end of the […] More
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in NASA, Spaceflight, Apollo, Space, KSC, Kennedy Space Center, astronaut, LaunchRiding the ‘Big Maumoo’: 50 Years Since Apollo 7 Brought America’s Lunar Goal Closer (Part 1)
Five decades ago, a gigantic rocket—nicknamed “the big maumoo” by Apollo 7 Commander Wally Schirra—stood primed on Pad 34 at Cape Kennedy, ready to launch the first stepping-stone in America’s bid to land a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s. Powered by eight H-1 engines on its S-IB first stage and […] More
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The Right Man: Remembering Gordon Cooper’s Day-Long Mercury Mission, 55 Years On
Early on 14 May 1963, a hotshot pilot lay on his back in a tiny capsule, atop a converted ballistic missile, and steeled himself to be blasted into space. On Project Mercury’s final mission, Gordon Cooper would spend 34 hours in space, circle the globe 22 times, and establish NASA’s first real baseline of long-duration […] More
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Dawn of a New Age: 55 Years Since the Troubled Mission of Aurora 7 (Part 1)
Fifty-five years ago, this week, America launched its second man into orbit around the Earth. That man should have been Deke Slayton, but a heart murmur had left him grounded, not in favor of his backup, Wally Schirra, but in favor of John Glenn’s backup, Scott Carpenter. The theory was that the second orbital voyage […] More
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in NASA, Space, John Glenn, Mercury Program‘Just a Normal Day’: Remembering John Glenn’s Mercury Flight (Part 2)
On the afternoon of 20 February 1962, millions of Americans listened and watched, transfixed as their countryman, John Glenn, plummeted back to Earth after completing three orbits of Earth. As detailed in yesterday’s AmericaSpace history article, it was a triumphant mission, but was also laced with drama, for worrisome indications had arisen that the heat […] More
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in Space, astronaut, Gus Grissom‘Fire in the Cockpit’: Remembering the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 1 (Part 1)
Five decades ago, this month, one of the worst tragedies in the history of U.S. space exploration unfolded with horrifying suddenness on Pad 34 at Cape Kennedy in Florida. “The Fire”—as it became infamously known—tore through the Command Module (CM) of the Apollo 1 spacecraft, during a “plugs-out” ground systems test on the evening of […] More
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‘The Next Mission in the Schedule’: 50 Years Since Apollo Took Steps to the Moon (Part 1)
Nearly five decades have passed since astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee lost their lives aboard Apollo 1, during a “plugs-out” ground test atop their Saturn IB booster at Cape Kennedy’s Pad 34. In just a few terrible moments on the evening of 27 January 1967, America’s hopes of landing a man on […] More
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The ‘No Sense’ Mission: 50 Years Since the Rise and Fall of Apollo 2 (Part 2)
It is rare to find a space mission which was born, thrived, and ended within a matter of weeks; a mission whose crew never left Earth, lived to tell the tale, and went on to fly another mission which sowed the seeds for the grandest scientific endeavor ever undertaken in human history. Yet that is […] More
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The ‘No Sense’ Mission: 50 Years Since the Rise and Fall of Apollo 2 (Part 1)
Fifty years ago, this month, a space mission which even its commander—veteran Mercury and Gemini astronaut Wally Schirra—described as having “no sense” was born, thrived and breathed its last, in the final weeks before the catastrophic Apollo 1 fire. Schirra was right: for had it taken place, the Apollo 2 mission, crewed by himself and […] More
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‘Man, I Gotta Pee’: 55 Years Since Freedom 7 Began America’s Adventure in Space (Part 1)
Fifty-five years ago, in the early hours of 5 May 1961, America prepared to launch its first man into space. Navy Cmdr. Alan Shepard would fly a suborbital flight—rising from Pad 5 at Cape Canaveral in the Mercury capsule he had named “Freedom 7” and splashing down, just 15 minutes later, in the Atlantic Ocean, about […] More
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