Walter Cunningham has left us

en.wikipedia.org

8 pointsColinWright4 comments

Fascinating he would choose to retire at 39, in a position of what sounds of great influence in the space program. Anyone know the context around this? Was it mandated?

The entire crew of Apollo 7 were essentially blacklisted from ever flying again after the crew had some heated disagreements with ground control during the mission and ended up forcing changes to the schedule. The top brass saw it as mutiny. Cunningham knew he would never get to fly another mission.

Interesting I had no idea. This was also the first crewed mission following the Apollo 1 failure. There's some explanation of what they disagreed on here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_7#Conflict_and_splashdo...

The commander resisted the start of the first live TV broadcast in space for safety reasons. The mission had both technical and public relations goals, and it's fascinating to see these in understandable conflict.

His book The All American Boys about the astronaut experience is well worth reading.

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