A Memory of James McDivitt, the First Astronaut to Fly on a Lunar Module and Flight on the Apollo 9 Spacecraft
James McDivitt, a former NASA astronaut who commanded the Gemini IV and Apollo 9 missions, died in his sleep last week in Tucson, Arizona, NASA said in a statement Monday. He was 93.
The Gemini IV mission in 1965 was McDivitt’s first as commander and marked the first time an American, astronaut Ed White, ventured outside the spacecraft in what eventually became known as a spacewalk.
“In the following years, it was a skill that allowed Apollo explorers to walk on the Moon and American astronauts and their partners from around the world to build the International Space Station,” NASA wrote in the statement.
McDivitt led his second mission, called Apollo 9, which lasted 10 days and was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in 1969. He was joined by Command Module Pilot David Scott and Lunar Module Pilot Russell Schweickart.
“This was the first flight of the complete set of Apollo hardware and was the first flight of the Lunar Module,” NASA said. They practiced the maneuvers that would be used during a lunar mission.
John Cunningham: The First Astronaut to Go to Space. In 1969, Apollo 7 Launched on a Mission to the Moon
The former astronaut was born in Chicago and graduated high school in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Michigan, where he graduated first in his class in 1959, the NASA statement said.
Cunningham was the lunar module pilot of the first manned Apollo mission that went to space. Apollo 7’s 11-day trip around the Earth was a key stepping stone to NASA’s march to the moon.
“The real accomplishment, of course, was the first manned landing on the moon,” Cunningham told NPR in 2016. “But that was the fifth of what I’ve always described as five giant steps. The Apollo 7 mission was the first one. Complete test of the Apollo spacecraft.”
The launch took place after a difficult time for NASA. Just 21 months before, a fire on the launchpad killed three astronauts during a test of Apollo 1. NASA changed many procedures and the command module had safety improvements.
Cunningham said in 2016 that if Apollo 7 had not gone well, the U.S. wouldn’t have landed on the moon before the end of the 1960s. He said that it is still the longest, most ambitious and successful first flight of any new flying machine ever.
“It was hard to imagine that we could get through all those things [in an 11-day mission] without something going wrong and saying, ‘hey you need to gotta come home,” Cunningham said.
The last time these astronauts flew in space, they were deemed a success. There was tension between Apollo 7’s commander, Wally Schirra, and mission control. Schirra was diagnosed with a cold and the crew’s disagreements worsened as the flight dragged on. Cunningham said it was a job, a challenge and a task that in the end was well done.
Cunningham left NASA in 1971 after serving as a manager for Skylab, the U.S. space station. He was a colonel in the Marines and attended the Harvard Business School. He also hosted a radio talk show.
Cunningham was a physicist and later became known for his skeptical views of climate change, disagreeing with overwhelming scientific belief that humans are to blame for increasing global temperatures. There is a war going on between those who believe in global warming and those who don’t.
The Cunningham’s family said they were proud of what he did and thankful for the man that he was. The world has lost a true hero, and we will miss him.
The Apollo 7 Test Flight: A Memory of Abraham Cunningham’s First Anomalous Arrival at the Kennedy Space Telescope in San Francisco
The test flight of the Apollo 7 mission was meant to show how far the Apollo capsule could travel before entering the atmosphere and pave the way for future exploration deeper into space. It was also notable for featuring in the first live TV broadcast of Americans from space, according to NASA.
I am one of those people that never looked back. Cunningham said that he only remembers when someone asked after he became an astronauts. “All I remember is just kind of keeping my nose to the grindstone and wanting to do the best I could as — I didn’t realize at the time, but that was because I always wanted to be better prepared for the next step. I have always been thinking about the future. I do not live in the past.
Cunningham received a PhD in physics from UCLA and later at the Harvard Graduate School of Business, he completed an advanced management program.