Wally Schirra
Wally Schirra
Walter Marty "Wally" Schirra, Jr.,, was an American naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and one of the original seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, United States first effort to put humans in space. He flew the six-orbit, nine-hour Mercury-Atlas 8 mission on October 3, 1962, becoming the fifth American, and the ninth human, to ride a rocket into space. In the two-man Gemini program, he achieved the first space rendezvous, station-keeping his Gemini 6A spacecraft within 1...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAstronaut
Date of Birth12 March 1923
CityHackensack, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
I played English football - soccer - instead of American football, because we couldn't afford the equipment.
Apollo was a big, unwieldy vehicle. I had a problem with the flight controllers over that. It would try to fare its way like an airplane.
He who commands an Apollo flight will not command a second one
John Glenn craved the publicity. I think even John would admit that. When he went into politics, that became pretty obvious! He knew how to do public relations.
Some of the wives didn't keep up with the program. It started breaking apart during the Apollo days.
I was told having a website would help me. I have yet to figure out why my life story needs to be on the web.
I don't go along with going to Moon first to build a launch pad to go to Mars. We should go to Mars from Earth orbit. We have already been to the Moon; we've already practiced.
Levity is the lubricant of a crisis. We resort to jokes, pranks and good natured kidding to relieve tension, stress and boredom.
A little levity is appropriate in a dangerous trade.
I don't think the space station will ever do anything for exploration. Putting people up there for a year or more is the only way you will get anywhere near the exploration concept
Kennedy had made a mess in Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. He had to do something to look good. The Apollo program of going to the Moon was quite a goal,
Within NASA, there were lots of things that were not appropriate to bring out to the public, because the press did not handle it well.
I saw the booster, not Sputnik, flying by, and I said, maybe this is the way we should be going, not just sitting back waiting for something to happen.
At the end of our NASA careers, no one had a place for us in the military.