RIP Walt Cunningham

[treadigraph]

Last surviving member of Apollo 7, the first crewed mission and rather overshadowed by a cold ridden and tetchy commander! Sadly stymied his NASA career...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64159514

[wiggy]

Widely reported elsewhere as being a nice guy..as I'm sure you know there's a large body of opinion that despite the flight being a technical success he was deemed guilty by association as a result of Schirra's behaviour (who was leaving NASA so probably didn't give a stuff) and as result ever got a second flight.

The NASA hierarchy eventually set the record straight in 2008 but it was a bit late in the day for Cunningham's spaceflight career:

First Apollo flight crew last to be honored | collectSPACE (http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-102008a.html)

[treadigraph]

Yeah I got the impression he was a decent guy, trouble mostly seemed to have been Wally and a bit of Donn from what I've read...

[tdracer]

I had the honor to meet Walt a couple of times. First was at a big rocketry event in Virginia back in 2009 - where I was able to get his autograph on a large Saturn 1B model (~ 4 ft. tall) before I flew it (after which it was promptly retired from flight duty).
The second was at a big fund-raising Gala for the Seattle Museum of Flight. The local club had asked me to build some Saturn V and Space Ship One models that they auctioned off as a fund raiser after we had most of the astronauts and other space dignitaries autograph them. Since they didn't want people asking for autographs at the actual Gala, I was invited to a mixer at the Four Seasons the night before where we collected the autographs (truly an amazing night that I'll never forget).
A very friendly, personable fellow who seemed genuinely interested in the models that I'd provided.

[wiggy]

Walt Cunningham Remembered (http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-012423a-walt-cunningham-remembered-astronauts.html)