Word: schirras
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Before they splashed down in the Atlantic 230 miles south of Bermuda, Apollo 7 Astronauts Wally Schirra, Walter Cunningham and Donn Eisele had completed 163 revolutions of the earth, com piled more man-hours in space than all of the manned Russian flights combined...
Buoyant Bags. Successful though it was, the mission ended in tension. For several minutes after splashdown, there were fears that an accident at sea had nullified Apollo's triumph in space. After a last voice transmission by Command Pilot Schirra from only 200 feet above the surface, Apollo lapsed into unscheduled silence; recovery helicopters from the aircraft carrier Essex flapped blindly through rainsqualls and fog in a vain search for the spacecraft. Then, Ap suddenly, the helicopters reported that they had picked up Apollo's homing signals. The spacecraft was only a third of a mile from...
Ferried to the Essex by helicopter, the three heavily bearded astronauts walked unsteadily, obviously weary after their long confinement. But NASA doctors reported that despite colds, loss of weight (Schirra 41 Ibs., Cunningham 8, Eisele 10), and muscles weakened by inactivity, the three space travelers were in good health -and in better humor than they had been for most of the week. The irritability that they had displayed during exchanges with ground controllers, said the doctors, was a natural consequence of long confinement, a rather humdrum flight and troublesome head colds. NASA's Paul Haney had another explanation: "Something...
Indeed, handling quick decisions aloft is a Schirra family specialty. Wally's father was a World War I fighter pilot who later barnstormed with his wife as wing-walker. Wally himself soloed at 16, and went into naval aviation soon after graduation from Annapolis. He flew 90 combat missions in Korea, shot down one MIG and scored one "possible." On the first unsuccessful attempt to launch Gemini 6, when the Titan booster belched smoke and flames without lifting off, Schirra correctly decided that there was no danger of an explosion. He made a split-second decision not to damage...
...Schirra's decision to retire from spaceflight will allow him more time for the ground-bound activities he enjoys-parties around the Houston space center, water skiing and sailing with his wife, Josephine, and his children, Walter, 18, and Suzanne, 11. "I've been gone one heck of a lot," he says. "It takes...