RIP, Wally Schirra

I remember how exciting and dramatic the Gemini 6 mission was, particularly the aborted launch, where the Titan II engines fired, but then were shutdown, which led to the oddity of Gemini 7 being launched before Gemini 6:

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.

...A Naval Academy graduate credited with shooting down at least one enemy jet during the Korean War, Schirra was chosen as one of America's seven original Project Mercury astronauts.

On Oct. 3, 1962, he lifted off from Cape Canaveral in the Sigma 7 space capsule for America's fifth manned space mission and third orbital flight.

...Asked later what went through his mind as we waited atop the 95-foot Atlas rocket for liftoff, Schirra replied with a grin: "You think, all these hundreds of thousands of parts were put together by the lowest bidder."

In 1965, Schirra and fellow astronaut Thomas P. Stafford were selected to fly the Gemini 6 mission, the first attempt to rendezvous in space with another orbiting spacecraft. Success was necessary if the Apollo program to land men on the moon was to advance.

After several postponements due to a rocket failure and technical problems, Schirra and Stafford were launched from Cape Kennedy -- the temporarily renamed Cape Canaveral -- on Dec. 15, 1965. Schirra's assignment was to maneuver Gemini 6 close to the orbiting Gemini 7, which had been launched 11 days earlier and carried astronauts Frank Borman and James A. Lovell Jr.

Six hours after liftoff, Schirra brought Gemini 6 to within 6 to 10 feet of Gemini 7, close enough to see the other astronauts' faces.

"It was done to perfection," Schirra said later. "Until then, we came in second to the Soviets. But they had never done a rendezvous and they didn't do that kind of rendezvous for another 10 years."

...Three years later in October 1968, Schirra and fellow astronauts Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham orbited the Earth in Apollo 7. The flight went well but all three men came down with severe head colds. Schirra was the first person to take Actifed in space, much to the delight of the product's manufacturer, Burroughs Wellcome.

Walter Marty Schirra was born March 12, 1923 in Hackensack, N.J.

His father, Walter M. Schirra Sr., was an engineer and an Army pilot who had flown bombing and reconnaissance missions over France during World War I. His mother was Florence Leach Schirra, who starred as a wing-walker during some of her husband's stunt flights over county fairs during the early 1920s. She was pregnant with Wally during the last of those flights.

Schirra said he grew up knowing he'd be a pilot. He soloed at 16 and in 1942, the year after the United States joined World War II, he was accepted into a three-year, accelerated course at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md.

...In 1949, Schirra was assigned to the 154th Fighter Bomber Squadron, flying low-level bombing and strafing runs over Korea. Rated an outstanding pilot, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and two Air Medals.

From 1952 to 1954, he was a test pilot at the Naval Ordnance Training Center in China Lake, where he was remembered for evading a Sidewinder missile that unexpectedly turned on him during an exercise. From 1954 to 1958, he was assigned to the carrier Lexington, the Naval Air Safety School at USC and the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent, Md.

In 1959, Schirra was selected as a Project Mercury astronaut. His responsibility, in addition to training for spaceflights, was the development and testing of the astronauts' life-support systems.

Schirra was a practical joker, relaxed and popular with his fellow astronauts. But he also was tough, cool and decisive under pressure. He became an outspoken critic of the carefully choreographed public relations program that threatened to smother the astronauts.

"None of us is interested in the glamour of being a spaceman," he said. "We're interested in getting up and getting back."

Schirra got up and back three times, once each during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. During his second spaceflight, maneuvering at 17,000 mph under Schirra's direction, Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 circled for hours, perfecting the techniques that would enable later space vehicles to dock with one another during flights to the moon.

Despite the danger, the banter never stopped.

"There seems to be a lot of traffic up here," Schirra radioed from Gemini 6 after one particularly close maneuver.

"Call a policeman," Borman retorted from Gemini 7.

"I can see your lips moving," Gemini 7 pilot Lovell told Schirra.

"I'm chewing gum," Schirra replied.

In 1969, after receiving the Collier trophy for achievement in aviation, Schirra left NASA and the Navy. He became a commentator for CBS News and often teamed with anchorman Walter Cronkite on space coverage.