On October 11, 1968, Walter Cunningham, who has died aged 90, and his crewmates, Wally Schirra and Donn Eisele, became the first astronauts to fly on an Apollo spacecraft. Cunningham was only the second American civilian in space; Neil Armstrong had been the first. Their vehicle was Apollo 7, which Cunningham believed provided the first of five highly successful “giant steps” (Apollo 8, 9, and 10 provided the next three), culminating, 10 months later , with Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, of Apollo 11. , making the first moon landing.
The first Apollo mission, Apollo 1, had ended catastrophically in January 1967 when its three crew members were incinerated during a launch pad test, and subsequent missions were not manned But in October 1968, while America was reeling from the anti-Vietnam War and civil rights protests, Apollo 7 was orbiting flawlessly some 187 miles above, and astronauts were testing modules for the ‘landing on the moon. However, Apollo 7 was not a happy ship. “The only thing that wasn’t working well was the crew,” observed fellow astronaut Tom Stafford.
Schirra, the commander, was a space veteran and had announced before the Apollo 7 mission that he planned to retire from space travel. Then, as the trip unfolded, NASA’s formidable director of flight operations, Chris Kraft, vowed that none of his crew would ever fly again. Cunningham later said he believed “the entire Apollo 7 crew was tarred and feathered by the actions of Wally Schirra during those 11 days.”
Cunningham suggested that Schirra felt the burden of rebuilding trust after Apollo 1. According to Stafford, Schirra became “more openly critical and sarcastic” and, once in orbit, tried to assert his command, rather than mission control, over travel, including the veto. the time of the first broadcast of live television space. The problems were compounded when, after a day, Schirra developed a bad cold, which she passed on to Eisele. “We were into used fabrics,” Cunningham recalled. The commander, for his part, “didn’t miss the opportunity to nail mission control to the wall.”
Back on Earth, a reporter asked Flight Director Glynn Lunney if the crew was a “bunch of malcontents.” Lunney replied that he would have “some difficulty in answering that”. Cunningham’s view was that the mission “left a bitter residue on the support people and the controllers”.
After Apollo 7, Cunningham went on to direct America’s first space station, Skylab, which he considered his greatest contribution to spaceflight. In 1971, he retired from NASA, enrolled in Harvard’s Advanced Management Program, and after graduation embarked on a business career.
In 1977, his memoirs, The All-American Boys, were published, covering his years at NASA. The Apollo 7 fight had provided a fleeting glimpse of the discord, but Cunningham’s book was a deeper insight into that curious culture that emerged around the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, of compromise, competition, and lives fragmented “No one knew,” he wrote, “what the astronauts stood for, except God, country, and the space program.”
A 1968 portrait of Apollo 7 crew members, left to right, Wally Schirra, Walter Cunningham and Donn Eisele. Nasa projected an image of open and clean heroes, rising higher and higher, but the reality was different. Photograph: HUM Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
Since the 1950s, NASA had projected an image of outspoken, clean-cut, white, male heroes rising ever higher. He collided with reality. Cunningham had joined NASA at Ellington Air Force Base near Houston, Texas, in January 1964, and soon after, Schirra gave what Cunningham called a “cool it around the flagpole” lecture , which touched on the good deals on Corvette sports cars (Cunningham notwithstanding). stuck in his Porsche) and warned of the many women “who loved astronauts”.
This did not lead to stable marriages. The only thing bigger than the astronauts’ egos, Cunningham said, was their wives’ sense of insecurity. As for the opening, “I’ve rarely heard an astronaut admit his own problems or say something complimentary about his teammates.” The goal was personal advancement or, failing that, “putting the other one behind.”
Cunningham was born in Creston, Iowa, the oldest of five children. The family moved to Venice, California, where he was educated at the local high school. His father, Walter, ran a cement contracting business, while his mother provided the ambition for the family. When he was 10 years old, watching the movie Hell Divers, young Walt decided to join the US Navy Air Force.
Nine years later, after briefly studying architecture, Cunningham enlisted in the navy and in 1952 began flight training. The following year, he was commissioned into the Marine Corps, thus ensuring that he would fly fighters. In 1956 he transferred to the USMC Reserve and began studying physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, earning a bachelor’s degree with honors in 1959 and a master’s degree with distinction in 1961. He then divided his time between working on a Ph.D. at UCLA, work with the Rand Corporation and, in October 1963, a successful application to NASA.
In 1964 he supported Republican Barry Goldwater – then seen as a right-wing radical – in the presidential election, and later worked with the Heartland Institute, a climate change denial organization, hosted Lift-off to Logic, a telephone radio. , and denounced “global warming alarmists” and their threat to the American economy.
Among his many honors, Cunningham shared an Emmy TV Award in 1969 for the Apollo 7 space broadcasts. He received NASA’s Distinguished and Exceptional Service Medals. In 2007, he was inducted into the American Astronaut Hall of Fame.
In 1956 he married LoElla Irby, and they had two children, Brian and Kimberley. The marriage ended in divorce and he is survived by his wife, Dot, and children.
Ronnie Walter Cunningham, astronaut, born 16 March 1932; died on January 3, 2023