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RIP Wally Schirra

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by BNWriter, May 3, 2007.

  1. BNWriter

    BNWriter Active Member

    CBS Radio is reporting that Wally Schirra, one of America's original astronauts, has died.

    His website, www.wallyschirra.com, confirms it.
     
  2. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Saw that too... damn....
     
  3. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

    So who is left of the original seven? John Glenn? Maurice Minnifield?
     
  4. StormSurge

    StormSurge Active Member

  5. Pilot

    Pilot Well-Known Member

    Scott Carpenter is still alive. I saw him at a book signing a year or so ago. Carpenter and Glenn is it.
     
  6. friend of the friendless

    friend of the friendless Active Member

    Sirs, Madames,

    No one was more short-changed in The Right Stuff. The guy who played Wally wasn't an actor--he was an extra.

    YHS, etc
     
  7. doctor x

    doctor x Member

    Agreed. Not only that the extra who played him looked like he was sick.

    RIP, Wally
     
  8. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    I was just thinking that same thing.

    Even NFL Hall of Famer Anthony Munoz (as Gonzales, the orderly) got better camera time than one of the original seven astronauts.
     
  9. boots

    boots New Member

    Wally Schirra's insight when he teamed with Walter Cronkite made CBS THE network for space exploration.
     
  10. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    Good point. In the early 1970s, Wally Schirra was possibly the most well-known of the Original Seven due to his TV commentary along with Cronkite.

    He was, to use a sports equivalent, the color commentator to Cronkite's play-by-play.

    After the space program faded out of public view, so did Schirra, for the most part (although he was still around). As FOTF pointed out, I don't think Schirra was even mentioned by name in "The Right Stuff."
     
  11. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

    He was the only astronaut to fly in all three of NASA's original manned spaceflight programs: Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, according to AP's obituary.

    Navy grad who also flew 80 combat missions in Korea.
     
  12. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Yeah, he was... Not prominent, but yeah...
     
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