Yesterday was a very sad day for the space community as we all mourned the loss of the last surviving Apollo 7 astronaut, Walter Cunningham. Walter Cunningham was born on March 16th, 1932.
In 1951 he joined the Navy and served on active duty in the US Marine Corps. During his time in the Navy Cunningham racked up over 4,500 hours of flying time, 3,400 hours of that were in jet aircraft. In 1960 while still in the Navy he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in physics later getting his Master of Arts in 1961 both from UCLA (University of California Los Angeles). In 1974 he would go on to receive his doctorate in physics from Harvard.
In 1963 Cunningham was selected to become a member of NASA’s third astronaut class. Cunningham’s first assignment was supposed to be on Apollo 2 but was placed on the backup crew on Apollo 1 after that was canceled. Cunningham finally got his spot to fly to space on the first crewed Apollo mission with Walter M. Schirra, Jr. and Donn F. Eisele. He was the designated crew member for the lunar module which means he preformed all the docking maneuvers and critical tests to make sure that the spacecraft would preform nominally on a lunar mission. During the mission he also helped provide the first television broadcast from space. After the Apollo 7 mission he had his final assignment at NASA as chief of the Skylab branch of the Flight Crew Directorate until he retired in 1971.
Cunningham later went on to go into the astronaut hall of fame. He also continued his service in the Navy till 1974. He later went on to invest in a bunch of startups and served leadership roles in Century Development Corp., Hydrotech Development Company, and 3D International. On the early morning of Tuesday January 3rd he passed away. In a press release Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator, stated “Walt Cunningham was a fighter pilot, physicist, and an entrepreneur – but, above all, he was an explorer. On Apollo 7, the first launch of a crewed Apollo mission, Walt and his crewmates made history, paving the way for the Artemis Generation we see today, NASA will always remember his contributions to our nation’s space program and sends our condolences to the Cunningham family.”
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