Oral History With R. Walter Cunningham

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Photo of Walter Cunningham inside the Apollo 7 spacecraft
Lunar module pilot Walter Cunningham writes with a space pen as he performs flight tasks on the ninth day of the Apollo 7 mission.
Credits: NASA

Selected for NASA's third astronaut class in 1963, Cunningham served as the backup Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 1. He piloted the 11-day flight of Apollo 7 in October 1968, the first manned flight test of the Apollo spacecraft. The crew executed maneuvers enabling them to practice for upcoming Apollo lunar orbit rendezvous missions and provided the first live television transmission of onboard crew activities. Cunningham served as the Chief of the Skylab branch under the Flight Crew Directorate at Johnson Space Center in 1969 until his retirement and move to the private sector in 1971.

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