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Walter Cunningham

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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Cunningham, Walter

 

Born Mar. 16, 1932, in Creston, Iowa. Astronaut of the USA.

In 1951, Cunningham began his service in the US Navy, where he was trained as a pilot. He later left active military service but remained in the Marine Corps reserves with the rank of major. In 1960 he graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles with a major in physics. In 1961 he received a master’s degree in physics at UCLA and subsequently a doctorate. He worked for an industrial corporation, where he studied the problem of defense against ballistic rockets launched from submarines and also problems of the earth’s magnetism. In 1963, Cunningham became an astronaut for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Together with W. Schirra, Jr. and D. Eisele he completed a space flight from Oct. 11 to Oct. 22, 1968, on the Apollo 7, which made 163 revolutions around the earth. This was the first test flight of the command module of the Apollo spacecraft.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
References in periodicals archive
This mission, which included Wally Schirra and Walter Cunningham, offered a series of firsts for NASA; for instance, it was NASA's first manned Apollo flight and first manned flight with the Saturn IB rocket.
My memory was refreshed last week when a veteran of that summer, the Honorable Walter Cunningham, President Jimmy Carter's ambassador to Kenya, visited me in Clinton and heaped praise on Gordon Lankton's Gallery of African Art.
The negative fallout from President Barack Obama's proposed cancellation of the NASA space shuttle program is growing, writes Walter Cunningham, who piloted the first manned Apollo mission in 1968.
One astronaut, Walter Cunningham - who flew on the first manned Apollo flight, Apollo 7 in 1968 - made national news in August 1964 when he fell and ripped open his pressurized suit on McKenzie Pass, leading to a better-designed suit, according to a story in the Bend Bulletin at the time.
Included in the lecture programme will be a special viewing of the award- winning film "In The Shadow Of The Moon", a documentary about the Apollo moon missions - a subject dear to Walter Cunningham who was command pilot of Apollo 7, the first manned spacecraft in the Apollo programme.
As I helped serve hot bowls of vegetable soup, Walter Cunningham told me how much the club meant to him.
The selection includes some well known favourites as well as two original numbers written by Walter Cunningham, I wouldn't trade my Shamrock and Where Time Stood Still.
On my trip there was also a celebrity speaker, former US astronaut Walter Cunningham. What better way to brush up your conversation at dinner than by sharing an early evening cocktail with Walter discussing 'Is There Life Out There?' One of the afternoon's highlights, however, was afternoon tea at 4pm in the panoramic Galileo's lounge, with live harp or piano music being played in the background.
Eisele, and Walter Cunningham, was successfully launched and began an 11-day Earth orbit during which the crew transmitted live television broadcasts from the spaceship.
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