We spoke with legendary astronaut Walt Cunningham about fear and the potential of a manned expedition to Mars.
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By Jim Clash
Quick Bio
Sage advice can be gleaned indirectly from the words of men who’ve done amazing things. In this interview series by Jim Clash called “The Right Stuff,” we share nuggets of wisdom from great men who’ve taken big risks in life —boxers, balloonists, test pilots, astronauts, mountain climbers, ocean divers, scientists, Olympians, race car drivers — and come out the better for it.
What exactly is the right stuff? Other than the name of a famous movie about the space race, it’s a state of mind. The term is a throwback to a time when character counted — when men routinely risked their lives not to get rich, bloviate or self-aggrandize, but for their country, science, exploration and the joy of pure competition.
Clash, a fellow and director at The Explorers Club, is a seasoned adventurer himself. In reporting for Forbes and other publications over the last two decades, he has skied to the South Pole; driven the Bugatti Veyron at its top speed of 253 mph; flown in a MiG-25 at Mach 2.6 to the edge of space; visited the North Pole twice; and climbed the Matterhorn, 23,000-foot Aconcagua and virgin peaks in Antarctica and Greenland. He has also purchased a ticket from Virgin Galactic Airways to fly into suborbital space.
On October 11, 1968, Walt Cunningham boarded Apollo 7 for the first manned test flight of the 363-foot-high Saturn V rocket. It was a pivotal day — the first American space flight since the tragic Apollo 1 fire in early 1967, and the last flight before America sent men around the moon a few months later.
After a tense launch, Cunningham, Donn Eisele and Wally Schirra orbited Earth 163 times, and America was back in the Cold War space race with the Russians. For a variety of reasons, it was the last flight by all three astronauts.
Cunningham, a retired Marine Corps fighter pilot colonel and the third civilian astronaut, spent eight years with NASA, contributing to the development and testing of all major operating systems of the Apollo spacecraft. Now 82, Cunningham believes the Space Shuttle was the greatest flying machine ever built — and that NASA made a serious mistake by retiring it.
As tough as he is, Cunningham has a sense of humor. “I’m the only guy I know who went around the world 163 times before I ever got to see Europe,” he chuckles. He is also gracious. “Astronauts got the glory because we were sitting on the head of the spear, but it was management that had the real nerve making decisions,” he says.
Cunningham, with an M.S. in physics from UCLA and an M.B.A. from Harvard University, is author of The All American Boys and recipient of several honors, including induction into the Astronaut Hall of Fame. I caught up with him recently to talk about the future and the past.
Nobody is being a coward. The reason nobody is going to mars right now is because space exploration cost a huge lot of money, which right now is being spent for “worthier” causes, such as armaments and NSA facilities.