Apollo 7 astronaut Walter Cunningham, who performed NASA’s first manned lunar mission in 1968, died on the 3rd (local time) at the age of 90. After Don Eisel in 1987 and Walter Schirra in 2007, the last astronauts aboard Apollo 7 died.
“Walter Cunningham was a fighter pilot, physicist and entrepreneur, but he was an explorer first,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement on the 4th (local time). “On Apollo 7, Walt and his colleagues pioneered the Artemis Program.” he said. The Artemis program is a manned lunar exploration mission that NASA launched 50 years after Project Apollo. Last month, Artemis 1’s Orion spacecraft returned safely to Earth and successfully took its first step.
Born in 1932 in Iowa, USA, Cunningham enlisted in the Navy in 1951. During the Korean War, he flew 54 missions as a pilot. After being discharged from the Army, he earned masters and doctorates in physics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Harvard University. Since 1963 he has been selected as a NASA astronaut and is active.
He boarded Apollo 7, which launched in October 1968, and returned to Earth after orbiting the Earth 163 times for 11 days. It was a mission to test the spacecraft’s flight capabilities prior to full-scale lunar exploration. At the time, the trial of Cunningham carrying out the mission with U.S. Navy Captain Walter Schirra and U.S. Air Force Major Don Achill was televised. Their findings are estimated to have laid the foundation for future manned lunar exploration.
After 1971, Cunningham transformed into a venture capitalist and investor. He continued his outside activities, such as hosting a radio talk show. In 2010, he released a memoir, The All American Voice, looking back on his astronaut days.
