RIP Wally Schirra

[BNWriter]

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

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

 

[slappy4428]

Saw that too... damn....

 

[micropolitan guy]

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

 

[StormSurge]

Damn.. My dad was on the aircraft carrier that picked him after his Mercury flight. http://www.thespaceplace.com/history/mercury/mercury08.html

He had his autograph & after learning about him, Wally Schirra was a name that I would never forget.

RIP.

 

[Pilot]

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

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

 

[friend of the friendless]

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

 

[doctor x]

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

RIP, Wally

 

[BTExpress]

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

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.

 

[boots]

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

 

[Starman]

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

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."

 

[micropolitan guy]

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.

 

[slappy4428]

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

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."

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

 

[JBHawkEye]

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

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."

I remember watching him on all of the CBS broadcasts with Cronkite. Good stuff, good memories.

 

[John]

I watched my DVD of The Right Stuff the other night and every time I watch it I can't help but notice how Wally is merely a dorky-looking extra.