Walt Cunningham Apollo 7 Astronaut

Physicist and astronaut Walt Cunningham is the only Cunningham to have flown in space. 

He was a graduate of Venice High School, in California, and completed his doctorate in Physics (with exception from completing his Thesis) in the early 1960s, and co-authored the book “Importance of the Observation That Stars Don’t Twinkle Outside the Earth’s Atmosphere” 

However his primary achievement was taking part in the pivotal Apollo 7 flight.

For those who were born after the Apollo missions, Apollo 7 was the first manned flight of the Apollo series.

The intent was for the first astronauts to travel into space on Apollo 1, which was originally listed as flight AS-204) but a tragic fire, on the unfueled Apollo 1 , just days before the planned mission  killed all three astronauts, during what was planned to be a routine pre-flight test.

As a result the entire Apollo mission was delayed, to allow the crew modules to be complete redesigned.

After the accident the AS title was dropped. However the numbering system seems confusing as there was no flight AS-205 nor  flight AS-206, and  there were no Apollo 2, and Apollo 3 missions.

In fact, the next flight was Apollo 4, which seen the first test launch of the Saturn V rocket, to test the third state restart. This occurred on November the 9th in 1967, which remarkably was just over 6 months after the fatal fire. The plan was to launch Apollo 1 into orbit on February the 21st 1967,  but the fire occurred just days before on January 27th 1967.

It is likely that Apollos 2 and 3 (which were missions planned under the AS series) were already complete, or very close to completion, when the fire aboard Apollo 1 occurred. Thus they were not used and scrapped, as the cost to update their designs would have been far too prohibitive.

As a result, all manned flights were put on hold, and the next flight in the series was Apollo 4.

The Apollo 4, 5 and 6 flights were changed to unmanned flights to test the rocket’s safety.

Thus, the next manned flight, in the Apollo series was Apollo 7, which was the flight undertaken by Walt Cunningham.

However, this was Walt’s last space mission. In fact, all three astronauts, who took part in the Apollo 7 mission never flew again into space. 

This occurred, because the astronauts (as a group) decided that they wanted to have a much bigger say in the safety of the Saturn builds. This caused perhaps understandable friction between the astronauts and the designers, who had been brought in to replace the original design crew.

Today, it is unclear how much impact Walt Cunningham’s criticisms of the electrical systems in Apollo 1 played in the redesign, but it is known that Walt was the only physicist amongst the three astronauts.

Today, Walt Cunningham is the only surviving member of the first manned Apollo flight, and we at Clan Cunningham with to thank him for his service.