Walter marty schirra iii
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Wally Schirra
American astronaut (1923–2007)
Walter Marty Schirra Jr. (shur-AH; March 12, 1923 – May 3, 2007) was an American naval aviator, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. In 1959, he became one of the original seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, which was the United States' first effort to put humans into space. On October 3, 1962, he flew the six-orbit, nine-hour, Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, in a spacecraft he nicknamed Sigma 7, becoming the fifth American and ninth human to travel into space. In December 1965, as part of the two-man Gemini program, he achieved the first space rendezvous, station-keeping his Gemini 6A spacecraft within 1 foot (30 cm) of the sister Gemini 7 spacecraft. In October 1968, he commanded Apollo 7, an 11-day low Earth orbit shakedown test of the three-man Apollo Command/Service Module and the first crewed launch for the Apollo program.
Before becoming an astronaut, Schirra graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1945, and served at sea during World War II. In 1948, he became a nava
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Updated at 10:15 a.m. May 4, 2015
Josephine “Jo” Schirra, married 62 years to one of the original Project Mercury astronauts, died April 27 at her Rancho Santa Fe home, according to a death notice.
“Jo has joined Wally’s orbit now,” said the U-T San Diego notice, published Sunday. “Her ashes will be sprinkled in the Pacific off San Diego and Kauai, eventually meeting up with Wally’s in the sea.”
She was 91. Cause of death was not given, but the notice said she “passed away peacefully at home surrounded by her family.”
Lily Koppel, whose book “The Astronaut Wives Club” has been made into an ABC series to premiere in June, told Times of San Diego that Jo Schirra “was utterly gracious and formal.”
“The other Mercury wives knew her as the ‘perfect Navy wife’ who would always show up to functions with perfect pearls and gloves on,” Koppel said Monday. “She also had a wry sense of humor — she had to to compete with her husband who was known as the practical joker among the alpha male astronauts.”
Wally Schirra was competitive even with his wife, Koppel said, and they v
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Walter M. Schirra, Jr.
by Tara Gray
Walter Marty Schirra, Jr. (Captain, USN, Ret.), was born on March 12, 1923, in Hackensack, New Jersey, to parents Walter Marty Sr. and Florence Shillito (Leach) Schirra. His father, an engineering graduate of Columbia University with Royal Canadian Air Force Flight training, 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.1 Schirra is married to the former Josephine Cook "Jo" Fraser of Seattle, Washington, the step-daughter of Admiral James L. Holloway (USN, Ret.) who was Commander-in-Chief of the Northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean area.2
Schirra graduated from Dwight W. Morrow High School in Englewood, New Jersey, in June 1940. He studied aeronautical engineering at the Newark College of Engineering (now the New Jersey Institut
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