Wally Schirra Dead at 84

UglyTool writes "Wally Schirra, the only astronaut to have flown on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions, died of a heart attack at a hospital in San Diego. Wallyschirra.com has much more on the man, his life, and his contributions to the American Space Program."

Re:Wally Shirra was an Old School Astronaught bada

[ubrgeek]

Actually, he probably was in his younger days. Had the honor of meeting him once when I was a reporter. This was around 10 years ago and you wouldn't believe the number of women flocking around him to hear his stories ...

In the future

[SAN1701]

Altough he didn't walked in the moon in his Apollo mission, his death made me think if there will be a time when, as before, no living person had actually went to some other world. With no moon mission schedulled by any nation capable of it, and the ageing of Apollo astronauts (it's almost 4 decades since the landings after all), it seems possible that in some point in the future we will have no moon walkers among us.

Kind of sad. Reminds me that, for some decades, civilians (rich civilians, of course), could cross the north atlantic in less than for hours, and now, well, only the military can do it that fast.

Re:From a different time

[gvc]

Let's not get too nostalgic. The whole point of the space race was as a proxy for the Americans and Soviets to one-up each other in their nuclear delivery capacity. The cold war gave us NASA and microelectronics while WWII gave us the Manhattan project and computers. War, not any sort of benign application of human ingenuity and effort.

Once Apollo 11 landed on the moon, interest in the space program quickly faded. Even Apollo 13 rekindled it only for the duration of the mission. While spinoff benefits of the program were manifold, these were unintentional. It was a publicity stunt, plain and simple.

"Kind of sad" is putting it mildly...

[alispguru]

The year 2009 will be the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing.

It will also be the 37th anniversary of the last moon landing.

Dammit.

If everything goes according to current NASA plans, they'll be back in 2019.

2019!

Re:Wally Shirra was an Old School Astronaught bada

[DerekLyons]

We've definitely gone from the days when our astronauts were national heroes, and space flights were major news items, to relatively anonymous folks risking their lives to put the next communications satellite in orbit for our corporate masters.

I hate to put facts up against your rant - but commercial flights on the Shuttle ended back in the 1980's after the loss of Challenger.
 
 

Honestly, does anyone here know the name of a current astronaut off the top of their head without doing a search?

Sure - but then I don't rely on 'corporate masters' for my information. I get off my ass and find out news on what I am interested in myself.

Re:An Astronaut's Astronaut

[sakusha]

Schirra was a tech freak, he was determined that all his missions were absolutely by-the-book and even if they weren't the most daring missions, he'd achieve all the technical goals with absolute accuracy. From what I read, he achieved all everything he hoped for.

In an odd coincidence, my Dad just sent me a copy of Schirra's book "Schirra's Space" (ISBN 1557507929) a couple of days ago. I haven't even had a chance to read it, but it freaked me out when he died just after I got it in the mail. Looks like an interesting book.

Schirra (and all the Mercury astronauts) were my heroes when I was just a little kid. Now one more hero is gone. We need more heroes like Schirra.

Re:Look at it this way...

[OldeTimeGeek]

Agreed.

We kids knew about the Cold War and all that, but the threat was never any near as real to us as the reality of the pictures of the moon that flashed back during the Ranger program, or the grainy videos we saw on our TV during the Gemini and Apollo missions. We were actually going into outer space and just about every one of us thought we could go there too.

Maybe I'm getting old and a bit cynical, but I just don't see that spark in children today. Maybe it's that we were blissfully naive when I was a kid or maybe it's because it seems that the world that's presented to kids today is cold and gray and full of troubles.

I really feel sorry for them - very few of them will ever have the chance to be a witness to a feat that is truly beyond their imagination.

It might not happen...

[yeremein]

The youngest moon walker (Harrison Shmitt; Apollo 17) will be 84 in 2019. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin will be 89. There's a good chance at least one Apollo moon walker will survive to see mankind return to the moon.

A pioneer gone, but not forgotten

[talon_262]

Good on ya, Mr. Schirra...may you have the best of luck on your final mission, scouting out the frontiers of the afterlife for those coming after you. We know you will carry it out with the same doggedness and attention to detail that marked your missions in this life.

May you, Grissom, White, and Chaffee have a grand time catching up on the 'good old days'!