So long, Wally.

"NASA announced today that veteran astronaut Walter M. "Wally" Schirra
has passed away at the age of 84. His family said that he died of
natural causes on Wednesday at a hospital in La Jolla, California. In
a statement, NASA Administrator Mike Griffen said, "with the passing
of Wally Schirra, we at NASA note with sorry the loss of yet another
of the pioneers of human spaceflight."

Schirra was started his career in aviation at the Naval Academy, later
fighting in the Korean War. He was chosen as one of the original seven
Project Mercury astronauts, but he went on to participate in all three
early space exploration programs: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.

His Mercury flight lifted off on October 3, 1962, making him the fifth
American in space, on the third orbital flight. He and Tomas P.
Stafford flew on the Gemini 6 mission, which was the first attempt to
rendezvous with another spacecraft in orbit. He was joined by Donn
Eisele and Walter Cunningham aboard Apollo 7, the first flight after
the tragic Apollo 1 fire killed 3 astronauts."

http://www.universetoday.com/

Double-A