Quick LinksBorn in New Jersey with aviation in his blood Schirra's NASA experience: the three missions that made him immortal List of awards won by Wally Schirra

The famed National Aeronautical Space Administration ( NASA) was formed during the Cold War's space race. Six months after its formation, NASA announced its first seven astronauts, collectively dubbed "the Mercury 7." Walter "Wally" Schirra was one of these seven select space explorers.

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Schirra went on to achieve some other distinctions, too -- he was the first astronaut to rocket into space three times. During his lifetime, he also went on to fly on the Gemini and Apollo missions, becoming the only person to fly all three pioneering space missions.

Born in New Jersey with aviation in his blood

March 12, which was celebrated this year, was significant in the space and aviation community as several astronauts touched down on the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft after spending close to half a year in the International Space Station. Walter Schirra was born exactly 101 years before this momentous occasion. According to the New Mexico Museum of Space History, he had "aviation in his blood."

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The museum noted that Schirra's "father was a World War I fighter pilot, and both his parents were 'barnstormers' in the 1920s, daredevil pilots who gave impromptu air shows across the country." According to NASA, his father was an engineering graduate of Columbia University with Royal Canadian Air Force Flight training and was:

" commissioned a first lieutenant in the Army Signal Corps. He flew bombing and reconnaissance missions over Germany during World War I, and after the war he barnstormed at county fairs around New Jersey as a stunt flier with his wife, who sometimes stood on the wing of his biplane."

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Schirra was to attend Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, from where he graduated in 1940. Later academic voyages took him to the Newark College of Engineering (now the New Jersey Institute of Technology).

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941), he applied to the United States military academies. After receiving an appointment to the US Naval Academy in 1942, he graduated with a Bachelor's in Science in 1945, the year World War II ended.

Schirra's NASA experience: the three missions that made him immortal

After the end of the World War, Schirra participated in several missions -- one of which was the 154th Fighter-Bomber Squadron to Itazuke Air Force Base in Japan. During this mission, Schirra downed two MiG-15s. Later, he became a test pilot at Naval Ordnance Test Station China Lake, California (NOTS) and was also accepted to the US Naval Test Pilot School in 1958. Finally, in 1959, he became a military test pilot for NASA.

✕ Remove Ads Sigma 7 Mercury Flight

Three years after he made it to NASA's Mercury 7, Schirra piloted the Sigma 7 Mercury flight, which orbited the Earth six times. Sigma 7 Mercury flight was America's third and then-longest orbital spaceflight during the Mercury-Atlas 8 mission. Some of the highlights of the flight included:

Duration of the flight

9 hours 15 minutes

Velocity of the spacecraft

17,557 miles per hour (at an altitude of 175 statue miles)

Photo: NASA | Wikimedia Commons

Before re-entering Earth's atmosphere, the Sigma 7 Mercury flight traveled 144,000 statute miles. Recovery of the Sigma 7 spacecraft occurred in the Pacific Ocean. According to NASA, Schirra had named his spacecraft, following the tradition of earlier Mercury astronauts:

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"Schirra named his capsule Sigma 7, after the Greek letter Σ often used in engineering and mathematics to symbolize summation, and the "7" representing the seven Mercury astronauts. Schirra chose Sigma to represent the summation of work by thousands of scientists and engineers across the country to make Project Mercury a reality."

In December 1965, Schirra became a backup command pilot for the Gemini III Mission. Gemini 3 was the first crewed mission in NASA's Gemini mission, alongside being the first project when two US astronauts made it to space together. Some of Schirra's responsibilities on Project Mercury include the following:

Improvement of astronauts' pressurized suits Environmental controls and life-support systems development to ensure the safety and comfort of the astronauts within the spacecraft during the mission. ✕ Remove Ads Germini 6

Schirra later became the Command Pilot seat on the history-making Gemini 6 flight. According to NASA, this 26-hour flight was the fifth crewed Earth-orbiting spacecraft of the Gemini series. The primary objectives of the mission were "to demonstrate on-time launch procedures, closed-loop rendezvous capabilities, and stationkeeping techniques with Gemini VII."

Photo: NASA | Wikimedia Commons

The one-day, one-hour, 51-minute, 24-second mission also tested spacecraft systems, evaluated the spacecraft's reentry guidance capabilities, and conducted four experiments. Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford was with Schirra on Gemini 6.

✕ Remove Ads Apollo VII

Apollo VII, which was placed in an orbit with an apogee of 153.5 nautical miles and a perigee of 122.6 nautical miles, was the first manned flight test of the Apollo program. Alongside Schirra, the other astronauts in this program were Command Module Pilot Donn F. Eisele and Lunar Module Pilot Walter Cunningham.

Photo: NASA

Some of the highlights of the mission included:

Eight successful tests The first effective transmission of activities (of crew onboard) via television Measurement of the accuracy of performance of all spacecraft systems

Despite the fact that Schirra cemented his legacy as the only astronaut to have flown to space in Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions, history.com noted that when Schirra was selected for the Apollo 7 mission, he had already decided to leave NASA:

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"Schirra was badly shaken by the death of his friend and neighbor Gus Grissom in the Apollo 1 fire. The safety of his crew was his prime concern and outweighed nearly all other tasks that NASA planned for the Apollo 7 flight, according to Andrew Chaikin , a NASA historian and author of A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of The Apollo Astronauts . In the aftermath of the fire, Schirra and everyone else at NASA was on edge."

Nonetheless, Schirra completed the mission and logged a total of 295 hours and 15 minutes in space.

List of awards won by Wally Schirra

Some of the awards won by Wally Schirra include the following:

The Collier Trophy, 1962 Kincheloe Award, SETP, 1963; Haley Astronautics Award - AIAA, 1963, 1969; Harmon International Trophy, 1965 ✕ Remove Ads

In addition to these, Schirra also won the NASA Exceptional Service Medal, NASA Distinguished Service Medal, US Navy Distinguished Service Medal, and Distinguished Flying Cross.

Photo: NASA via Flickr

Schirra (co)authored many books, including We Seven, the story of the original seven astronauts of the Mercury program; Schirra's Space, his autobiography; and The Real Space Cowboys, an account of the Mercury Seven astronauts, among others.

The legendary astronaut died on May 3, 2007, but he will always be remembered as the only astronaut to have flown Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.

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