RIP Wally Shirra, and thanks for everything.....

I received this today from Bill Fox, the fellow who ran Area 51 (and
who donated all the amazing SR-71 stuff in our "Blackbird Suite":
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From: Michael Finneran, Head, PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE
]
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 2:10 PM
Subject: Message from Administrator on Wally Schirra's Passing

The Passing of Wally Schirra

Today is a sad day for NASA and our country, as we mourn the passing
yesterday in California of astronaut Walter "Wally" Schirra. With
Wally's passing, we at NASA note with sorrow the loss of yet another
of the pioneers of human space flight. As a Mercury astronaut, Wally
was a member of the first group of astronauts to be selected, often
referred to as the "Original Seven." Wally is remembered in the close
circle of the space community as the pilot who flew a "textbook
flight" on his Mercury mission in October 1962.

But Wally's space flight career went well beyond Mercury; on his next
flight, in December 1965, he commanded the Gemini 6 mission with Tom
Stafford as pilot. Wally and Tom carried out the first rendezvous in
space, flying for hours in formation with Frank Borman and Jim Lovell
in their Gemini 7 spacecraft, and completing one of the key steps
along the path to the moon. The fact that this mission flew at all
will always be known as a testimony to Wally's cool precision under
stress, for Gemini 6 experienced the first on-pad engine shutdown in
human space flight history. Worse, the crew had a liftoff indication
triggered by a faulty umbilical connection; according to mission
rules, they should have ejected from the spacecraft. But Wally did
not feel what he thought he should have felt had the booster really
begun to take flight, and so the crew stayed aboard, saving the
mission and quite possibly the program.

Wally's last flight was Apollo 7, the first to be conducted in the
aftermath of the disastrous Apollo 1 fire. This flight was another
enormous success, accomplishing "101 percent of its objectives,"
according to the post-flight debrief. It also made Wally the first
man to command three different spacecraft, and the only one to fly
Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.

It was impossible to know Wally, even to meet him, without realizing
at once that he was a man who relished the lighter side of life, the
puns and jokes and pranks that can enliven a gathering. But this was
a distraction from the true nature of the man. His record as a
pioneering space pilot shows the real stuff of which he was made. We
who have inherited today's space program will always be in his debt.


Michael Griffin
Administrator
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Godspeed, Mr. Schirra. You and your cohorts were my childhood
heroes. I wish my kids had people like you to look up to and admire.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"