Wally Schirra Goes West

ScottM

ScottM

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iBazinga!
Thanks for all you did and the inspiration you were to me.

He was the astronauts engineer!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/05/03/schirra.obit/

schirra.jpg
 
Exact same headline I just heard ten minutes ago...

The heroes of my youth are slowly going away.

Smooth Skies, Wally.
 
Sad indeed. The only one of the original seven to fly on Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.
Prayers Wally. Peace.
 
Shepherd, Grissom, Schirra, Cooper, Slayton -- all gone. Only Scott Carpenter and John Glenn remain. But Wally Schirra was special -- he was only person to fly all three space capsule programs (Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo), and logged more space time than any other of the original seven Mercury astronauts.

Strangely, when I was a kid, Orville and Wilbur's accomplishments were little further back in history than the original Mercury 7's are today, and yet the Wright brothers seemed ancient history, while I remember those Mercury launches as though it were yesterday.
 
Schirra knew a bit about truly acting as PIC too. Probably why he didnt walk on the moon.
 
Ron Levy said:
Shepherd, Grissom, Schirra, Cooper, Slayton -- all gone. Only Scott Carpenter and John Glenn remain.
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Forgot to mention Scott Crossfield. I know he wasn't one of the 7, but a great pilot recently lost.
 
tonycondon said:
Schirra knew a bit about truly acting as PIC too. Probably why he didnt walk on the moon.
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Al Bean told me that was exactly why he did not walk on the moon. It was made very clear to Wally after Apollo 7 that he would not fly again. But everyone acknowledged later that Wally's tenacity is why the rest of the program went well.
 
KennyFlys said:
I'm not familiar with what you refer to. What happen?
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mission control tried to add a bunch of items to their flight plan, mid flight. Wally basically told them to kiss it. he was flying a brand new aircraft (apollo block 2) and didnt want to do anything that hadnt been rehearsed. his feeling was that he was commander of the craft, and therefore the final authority to what did or didnt happen. mission control, of course, felt that the astronauts should just do whatever they tell them. from what i understand, chris craft didnt appreciate his attitude much. the final straw was that they all had horrible colds in orbit. they were grumpy anyway. Schirra elected that they would not wear they're helmets during reentry due to their sinus issues. mission control was adamant that they put the helmets on for the possibility of cabin decompression on reentry. when Apollo 7 splashed down, the helmets weren't on.

the next year 3 cosmonauts died during reentry because they flew 3 guys in a 2 man ship, so no room for pressure suits, and the capsule decompressed on reentry.

history channel had a program about mission control on a few years back,Failure is not an option, had a good section on this. Chris Craft and Gene Kranz's biographies also detailed it
 
tonycondon said:
mission control tried to add a bunch of items to their flight plan, mid flight. Wally basically told them to kiss it. he was flying a brand new aircraft (apollo block 2) and didnt want to do anything that hadnt been rehearsed. his feeling was that he was commander of the craft, and therefore the final authority to what did or didnt happen.
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That wasn't the first time he excersized that authority on a space flight either. His Sigma 7 flight came right after Scott Carpenter's flight. Carpender's flight was thought to be far enough into the program to be allow the science people their head with regard to loading up the flight with a lot of scientific experiments. That stuff was right up Carpenter's alley. He got so carried away with all the non-operational stuff in the flight plan, that it caused him to get behind during the retro fire/re-entry phase. He ended up using up all of his attitude control fuel and over shot the splash down area by nearly 300 miles.
Schirra would have none of that non-operational crap on his flight. He trimmed out all of the scientific experimentations and made fuel conservation the theme for his flight. He finished his flight after using 1/4 or so the fuel that Carpenter had used and splashed down within sight of the recovery carrier.
 
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That seems to make sense to me... safety of the operation before all else.
 
KennyFlys said:
That seems to make sense to me... safety of the operation before all else.
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While Capt. Schirra operated that way (and paid the price for it), NASA's track record over the last five decades (Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia, etc) suggests it's not part of their corporate culture.
 
Ron Levy said:
While Capt. Schirra operated that way (and paid the price for it), NASA's track record over the last five decades (Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia, etc) suggests it's not part of their corporate culture.
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Decisions are not made by those who strap on the craft.

Schirra will be missed. The heros of my youth are fading away all too fast.
 
Ron Levy said:
While Capt. Schirra operated that way (and paid the price for it), NASA's track record over the last five decades (Apollo 1, Challenger, Columbia, etc) suggests it's not part of their corporate culture.
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Management may have a "get-things-done" attitude, but the engineers definitely are more safety oriented.

Challenger wasn't really NASA's fault. Blame that one on Morton Thiokol. NASA called and said "Can we launch when it's this cold?" Thiokol's engineers said "Well, it hasn't been tested" or something to that effect. Thiokol's execs said "We'll call you back in 10 minutes." Then, turned to the chief engineer and said "Take off your engineer's hat and put on your manager's hat." They called NASA back and said it was OK to go. Ka-boom. That sequence is now used in the "intro to engineering" courses when talking about engineering ethics. The next thing they say is "save 6 months' salary as soon as you possibly can, so that if you're put in this position you can still say 'no go.'"

You think NASA doesn't have a safety attitude, you should see the Russians. Their space-suits have the pack-o-guts on the front instead of the back, to facilitate necessary repairs to the suits WHILE ON A SPACEWALK. :hairraise: They do not value human life at all. :eek:
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Management may have a "get-things-done" attitude, but the engineers definitely are more safety oriented.
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You may be right about the engineers, but the "corporate culture" flows down from top to bottom. Clearly, the top has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to trade safety for expedience, which is why I say that their corporate safety culture appears historically inadequate. I sincerely hope NASA Administrator Michael Griffin (appointed after the final report on Columbia was published) is successful in changing that -- time will tell.
 
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