posted May 27, 2007 06:08 PM               

Your website looks interesting, thank you ! Unfortunately I can't open the PDF file with the obituary. And it's not my computer, my PDF software works fine...

posted May 28, 2007 03:34 AM               

I will forward the info to my webmaster of my association. We had in the past several problems with the PDF`s with the interviews. On some PC`s it worked fine and on some not!
I will post any update.

posted May 28, 2007 03:45 AM               

I already checked the PDF and it was no problem on my PC to open it. As I mentioned before, I will get the problem checked!

posted May 28, 2007 05:02 AM               

thanks for the info. As I said before, only some people have problems to open the PDF`s on the website.

posted May 28, 2007 05:02 AM               

thanks for the info. As I said before, only some people have problems to open the PDF`s on the website.

posted June 11, 2007 02:17 PM            

Resolved, That the House of Representatives-

(1) honors the life and accomplishments of Astronaut Walter Marty Schirra and expresses condolences on his passing; and

(2) recognizes the profound importance of Astronaut Schirra's record as a pioneer in space exploration and long-time contributor to NASA's mission as a catalyst to space exploration and scientific advancement in the United States.

posted June 12, 2007 08:45 AM               

RENDEZVOUS

Six months before I joined the Baha’i Faith, the then U.S. Navy test pilot, Walter M. Schirra, was named by NASA as one of the seven Mercury Astronauts. It was April 1959. Three and a half years later, On October 3 1962, a month after my pioneering life began in the Canadian Baha’i community, Schirra piloted the six orbit Sigma 7 Mercury flight, a flight which lasted 9 hours, 15 minutes. The spacecraft attained a velocity of 17,557 miles per hour at an altitude of 175 statute miles and travelled almost 144,000 statute miles before re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. Recovery of the Sigma 7 spacecraft occurred in the Pacific Ocean about 275 miles northeast of Midway Island.

Schirra died yesterday. I received the news while watching television here in Australia at the mid-point in my day of writing and reading. I usually take a break for lunch in the early afternoon about 1 or 2 p.m., watch/listen to some news and get back to the work. As I listened to the report I felt a kinship with Schirra even though he was twenty-two years my senior, had at least three honorary doctorates, a number of major awards, had been inducted into several halls of fame and had business and civic experience that was, to say the least, impressive. I was not in his league. But, still, I felt this kinship with the man and when I heard he had died, it was a cause for reflection. No tears were shed. I had no desire to meet him, talk to him on the phone, write the biography of his life, meet any of his family or indeed excavate in the inner motivations and or the outward experience of this pioneering astronaut.-Ron Price, Pioneering Over Four Epochs, 4 May 2007.

You were from Hackensack¹
and I was from Hamilton, but
what a high-flier you were, Walter!
One of aviation’s Hall of Famers
in your Sigma 7 back in ’62, in ’65
in that Gemini 6 or that first manned
test of an Apollo spacecraft in ’68
for the moon landing-reaching for
the skies! And they say you were
quite the entertainer.²

And me, Wally, just one of those
ordinarily ordinary boys from one
of a 1000 towns across this land.
The first to rendezvous in space,
you were--and it was not over,
you said, until you had stopped,
with no relative motion between
the two vehicles.³ I always wondered
what a rendezvous of my soul with its
Source of light was exactly, Wally,
well, you’ve given me a hint...

1 Shirra was born in this New Jersey town on 12 March 1923.
2 “Levity is appropriate in a dangerous trade,” Shirra said to Life magazine
3 Wikipedia, “Walter M. Shirra,” 4 May 2007

Ron Price 5 May 2007 (completed: 9 June 2007)

posted January 10, 2008 12:38 PM               

The San Diego Chapter of the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) Foundation is working to establish a $150,000 endowment to award annually a $7,500 Wally Schirra Memorial Endowment Scholarship to an American graduate science scholar.

To this end, they have entered a PARADE Magazine competition for a $50,000 prize if they are able to secure the most donations -- not the most money, but the most individual contributors. If successful, these funds would go into the ARCS National Endowment Fund. A minimum donation of $10 is all that is needed. The contest ends on January 31.