Schirra, Glenn, Carpenter, Alan Shepard, Donald "Deke" Slayton, Virgil "Gus" Grissom and Gordon Cooper were named America's first astronauts in April 1959. We who have inherited today's space program will always be in his debt." His record as a pioneering space pilot shows the real stuff of which he was made. But this was a distraction from the true nature of the man. Griffin said "It was impossible to know Wally, even to meet him, without realizing at once that he was a man who relished the lighter side of life, the puns and jokes and pranks that can enliven a gathering. "As a Mercury astronaut, Wally was a member of the first group of astronauts to be selected, often referred to as the Original Seven." "With the passing of Wally Schirra, we at NASA note with sorrow the loss of yet another of the pioneers of human spaceflight," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said in a statement. With Schirra's passing, only two of the Mercury 7 astronauts remain - former Sen. "Wally" Schirra, one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts who later commanded a dramatic two-man Gemini mission and the first shakedown flight of an Apollo command module, has died of natural causes, his family told NASA. STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS "SPACE PLACE" & USED WITH PERMISSION The Hubble Space Telescope was launched in April 1990, opening a new window on the universe that has revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos. Scientists unveil the images in this news conference held April 23. NASA's twin STEREO spacecraft have made the first three-dimensional images of the Sun. The crew narrates the highlights in this film.Īn air-launched Pegasus rocket lofts NASA's AIM satellite into orbit to study mysterious clouds at the edge of space. Shuttle mission STS-62 was a two-week flight of Columbia with packages of microgravity research experiments housed on pallets in the payload bay. The final and longest manned flight of Project Mercury was carried out by astronaut Gordon Cooper in May 1963. These historic pioneering days included the launch of Explorer 1, the first American satellite to orbit Earth. This is a video report on the United States' space exploration efforts during 1958. This stirring 1970s documentary narrated by Burgess Meredith pays tribute to the grand accomplishments of Apollo as men left Earth to explore the Moon and fulfill President Kennedy's challenge to the nation. New images of Jupiter and its moons are revealed in this briefing. The Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft recently flew past the Jovian system for a gravity sling-shot toward the outer solar system. Subscribe to Spaceflight Now Plus for access to our extensive video collections! Spaceflight Now | Breaking News | Mercury 7 astronaut Wally Schirra dies
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