Apollo 7 astronaut who helped to save the Moon landings
WALT CUNNINGHAM, who has died aged 90, was an astronaut who flew in space on the first crewed Apollo flight; his mission put the Moon landing programme back on track after a disastrous fire had killed three astronauts on the launch pad.
In January 1967 Cunningham, his commander Wally Schirra and crewmate Donn Eisele, were in training for the second Apollo flight as Nasa colleagues Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee perished in Apollo 1 when fire broke out during a countdown test.
As the shock subsided Cunningham and his colleagues were reallocated to a new mission, which became Apollo 7 after several uncrewed test flights.
In October 1968, Apollo 7 rose on the same rocket, in a brand new capsule with a non-flammable interior. Ten minutes later it slid into orbit at 17,400mph, 142 miles above the Earth.
Its ambitious 11-day flight which emulated the duration in space required for the first Moon landing the following year. It remains the longest inaugural test flight of any spacecraft ever undertaken.
The crew undertook experiments, including extensive colour photography of the Earth. Once separated from the rocket, they simulated the manoeuvre to extract the lunar lander that would be essential for the first Moon landing nine months later.
However, it was the addition of a black and white television camera that caught the public imagination. Whereas previous crews in smaller spacecraft had been confined to their cramped seats, live footage from Apollo showed the crew eating from floating jars, drinking globules of water and playfully spinning objects in mid-air. In one sequence, Cunningham swam past the camera and twisted upside down. It was the most memorable television of the year and won an Emmy award.
But as the flight progressed, after developing a bad cold, Schirra told mission control that the entire crew were ill, cancelled some tasks, and declined various requests for new tests. Cunningham would later insist that he never caught it, and that “when Wally had a cold, everyone had a cold”.
Unable to blow his nose when wearing a space helmet, Schirra had the crew return to Earth without them – meaning a cabin depressurisation during re-entry would have been fatal.
Schirra had announced his intention to retire after the flight. But his disobedience blighted the careers of Cunningham and Eisele, who never flew again. Meanwhile, Schirra made TV adverts for the cold remedy Actifed.
Apollo 7’s became the only crew not to be awarded Nasa’s Distinguished Service Medal. The omission was rectified on the 40th anniversary of the flight in 2008, but by then only Cunningham was alive to receive his in person.
The oldest of five children, Ronnie Walter Cunningham was born on March 16 1932 in Creston, Iowa, and brought up in Venice, California.
After achieving two degrees in physics at UCLA he joined the US Navy in 1951 and learnt to fly, then served in Korea as a Marine Corps pilot. He became a research scientist for the Rand Corporation, then joined Nasa in 1963 alongside such future lunar luminaries as Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and Gene Cernan.
After Apollo 7, Cunningham worked on the Skylab space station but was passed over for the commander role, and left Nasa in 1971. He joined the private sector as a businessman and investor. His book, The All-american Boys (1977), is widely regarded as one of the most penetrating accounts of life as an astronaut.
Walt Cunningham married Lo Ella Irby, with whom he had a daughter and son. The marriage was dissolved and he is survived by his children and his second wife Dorothy.