In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Houston said goodbye to Walter Cunningham; the last astronaut alive from Apollo 7 – NASA’s crowning success in its manned space mission program.
NASA, in a public announcement, sadly confirmed the death of Walter Cunningham, who had been 90 years old. He was part of an 11-day spaceflight that circled the Earth back in 1968 and this highly televised mission played a fundamental role leading up to the moon landing just under one year later.
“Walt Cunningham was a fighter pilot, physicist, and an entrepreneur – but, above all, he was an explorer,” stated NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
“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.”
Cunningham’s family, who released the news through their spokesperson, sadly announced his passing at the hospital “from complications of a fall, after a full and complete life.”
In a statement issued through NASA, his family expressed an “immense pride” in the illustrious life led by Cunningham.
“We would like to express our immense pride in the life that he lived, and our deep gratitude for the man that he was — a patriot, an explorer, pilot, astronaut, husband, brother, and father,” his family stated. “The world has lost another true hero, and we will miss him dearly.”
On the Apollo 7 mission, Navy Captain Walter Schirra and Air Force Major Donn Eisele were joined by Astronaut Cunningham – a civilian at the time. During this space flight, Cunningham served as Lunar Module Pilot.
Following a takeoff from Florida and culminating in an unblemished splashdown into the Atlantic Ocean off Bermuda, space officials granted the mission nearly perfect accolades.
Subsequently, the space agency dispatched another team, Apollo 8 to orbit around the moon; and in July 1969, it was followed by Apollo 11 which landed on its surface.
The Apollo 7 crew provided the public with a daily dose of humor and knowledge while in orbit, reaching viewers through television sets all around the world. Their educational but entertaining reports were so successful that they earned an Emmy Award for their outstanding work.
After a tragic fire that took the lives of three astronauts on Apollo 1 in 1967, the first human crew was launched into space.
An Iowa native, Cunningham joined the Navy in 1951 and went on to serve active duty with US Marine Corps for a total of 50+ missions as a night fighter pilot during the Korean War. His military career culminated with him attaining the rank of colonel upon retirement.
In 1963, NASA selected him to be part of its third astronaut class after he spent three years as a scientist working on classified defense studies for Rand Corporation.
Just one year prior to his passing, Cunningham candidly revealed in an interview that he had always dreamed of soaring the skies with aircrafts rather than spacecrafts given his impoverished upbringing.
“We never even knew that there were astronauts when I was growing up,” Cunningham said.
Following the success of Apollo 7, he devoted himself to promoting space exploration and was never part of another manned mission.
“I think that humans need to continue expanding and pushing out the levels at which they’re surviving in space,” he said.
Following his NASA retirement in 1971, he devoted himself to engineering, business and investing while also participating in public speaking events and radio show appearances. He immortalized his years as an astronaut through the publication of a memoir titled “The All-American Boys” that documented the highlights of his extraordinary career.
His wife, sister, and children mourn his passing.
