Epilogue: Final salute to a hero Prior to leaving NASA, Wally Schirra narrated a 12-inch album about the Apollo 11 mis- sion called Flight to the Moon , which was released after his retirement. The fi rst side was called Moments in Space History and detailed all of NASA’s manned space missions up to the fi rst lunar landing, while the reverse side had as its title The Actual Voyage of Apollo 11 . “That’s what gave me enough money after taxes to buy that Maserati downstairs,” he told one reporter with a chuckle in his voice. In 1967, he was offered a position as a director with Imperial American (Oil and Gas) by oil tycoon John M. King , who owned more airplanes than most small airplane compa- nies. A fl amboyant Colorado millionaire entrepreneur, King was a large man given to wearing cowboy hats and boots, who was once described as having built his empire on the sound American business principle of tax avoidance through oil leasing and other per- fectly legal means. “I gave King a ride once in a T-38,” Schirra recalled with a smile. “Not legal, of course, but this sort of thing is now past the statute of limitations. We buzzed King’s ranch in Colorado, and blew the windows out!” Although Schirra worked for King in Colorado, he did not fl y any of the airplanes in the fl eet. “At fi rst I tried to fl y,” he said. “King had enough airplanes to keep me busy – a Jetstar, Electra, Lears, twin Navions with rocket assist – but fl ying and talking to clients didn’t mix. When you fl y, you can’t carry on a business deal. I had to make a choice, and left the fl ying to the corporate pilots.” “I did own a Hughes 300 helicopter for a while,” he added. “In the space program we all had to have time in a helicopter, simulating the stage when we orbited the Moon, and had to transition from horizontal fl ight to vertical fl ight.” He fl ew the helicopter at the time he was working for John King , but at 5,000 feet and up, it was barely able to handle the thinner air. “I was pushing my luck and I fi nally got rid of it.” 1 Afterwards Schirra bought a turbocharged Enstrom that was far better suited to the high Colorado Rockies. But when he and Jo moved to Rancho Santa Fe in Southern California in 1984 and enquired about landing the helicopter near his house, he found his new neigh- bors far from agreeable. The helicopter had to go, and it did. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 246 C. Burgess, Sigma 7, Springer Praxis Books, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-27983-1 Epilogue: Final salute to a hero 247 He later said he regretted his association with John King , whose empire began to crumble shortly after Schirra left the company. “I learned all the do-nots from that outfi t,” he said. In his post-NASA years, Wally Schirra became a commentator for CBS News and cov- ered a number of signifi cant space fl ights, often teamed up with veteran anchorman Walter Cronkite . Together they covered all six Apollo landings on the Moon, plus the dramatic abort of Apollo 13 . Their biggest moment together though, was undoubtedly mankind’s fi rst footsteps on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission. That caused both men to become quite emotional on live television. Oh, that was tough, yeah, I got caught, in fact … They caught me and actually a tear came into my eye. I didn’t even know it happened, it was that emotional. Although no caption was supplied with this photo, it seems as if Schirra is celebrating the Apollo 11 lunar landing in 1969. (Photo: Retro Space Images) 248 Epilogue: Final salute to a hero Walter Cronkite and Wally Schirra commentating for CBS on the successful landing of Apollo 11 on the Moon. (Photo: CBS) About three days before they landed, I said, “Walter, there’s no man I know of, other than possibly your contemporary Eric Sevareid ” – I was needling him about Eric, because Eric is so well spoken – “who could possibly think of something bril- liant to say when they land on the Moon. Now here we are, we’ve been waiting for eons literally to land on the Moon. We know it’s going to happen, the guys have a good mission, things are going on very well. What are you going to say when these men land on the Moon, when they step foot on the Moon, what are you going to say, Walter? I can’t think of it, I’m tired of saying fantastic, beautiful, all this kind of stuff.” Walter said, “I don’t know, I think I’ll address myself to that.” So anyway, when the tear’s coming down out of my eye, Walter’s saying ‘ Golly gee whiz !’ Famous quote. Which just shows how emotional it was. 2 In 1969 Schirra also ventured into private industry as president of Denver-based fi nan- cial company Regency Investors, Inc., and served from 1970 to 1972 as chairman and CEO of the Environmental Control Company. In January 1973 he was elected vice chair- man of the board for SERNCO, Inc., then promoted to chairman in July. He was slightly burned in an association with a questionable investment company to which he lent his name, but treated it as a lesson learned. He was also invited to become a director of Investors Overseas Services (Australia) Management Limited. But he later said that even though he loved Australia, “I learned a little about how Australians did business [because] I was in the company of IOS fund salesmen for the length of my visit. They were a brassy bunch, ostentatious and rude. They wore suede shoes and big diamond rings and rode around in Rolls-Royces. I left Australia on the fi rst available fl ight.” 3 Life beyond NASA 249 LIFE BEYOND NASA Schirra once told an interviewer interested in the way he had gone from astronaut to the world of business that he had “no formal business training whatsoever.” I was a professional naval offi cer. But then I became an astronaut and when you put your life at stake and depend on industry for support, you get to know what it is all about very quickly. I soon learnt how the industry worked. Of course, being an astronaut helped immensely. My mind is not confi ned to a tight formula and I have had plenty of experience of making decisions on a high level. I do not worry about the petty details. I leave those to the men out of Harvard Business School. You need “bean counters” as I call them, to keep track of all the decimals. I make decisions on a broader scale. 4 There were other business and charitable interests: he became vice president of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots ; chairman of the Colorado State Cancer Crusade; a director of Precision Estimates – a data storage company for computers; a director of the First National Bank of Colorado; a trustee of the Detroit Institute of Technology; a spokes- man for the Association of American Railroads; and a director of the U.S. Winter Athletics Committee. In 1975 he was appointed director of technology purchase for the Johns Manville Corporation, and the next year became their Director of Power Plant and Aerospace Systems. Three years later he became president for development with the Goodwin Corporation. The year after that he established his own company, Schirra Enterprises , as an independent consultancy. In 1981, on the occasion of the fi rst space shuttle fl ight, Schirra was asked for his thoughts on the innovative spacecraft. “Mostly it’s lousy out there,” he stated. “It’s a hos- tile environment, and it’s trying to kill you. The outside temperature goes from a minus 450 degrees to a plus 300 degrees. You sit in a fl ying Thermos bottle.” 5 Three years on, in 1984, the Schirras moved to Ranch Santa Fe, outside of San Diego, California. They were both familiar with (and fond of) the area. During Wally’s two assignments as a test pilot at Miramar Naval Air Station in the 1950s they had lived in Solana Beach and Del Mar, while Jo had lived in Coronado as a child with her military family. Living a contented life with Jo in Rancho Santa Fe , Wally loved nothing better than sailing on the Windchime , his 36-foot sailboat. He also enjoyed skiing, hunting, and fi sh- ing, and stayed active as a popular orator on the guest speaker circuit. He and Jo were frequent participants in social and charitable activities. Wally also served as a member of the San Diego Yacht Club and the Rancho Santa Fe Tennis Club and was on the boards or advisory boards of several organizations, including the Birch Aquarium, the Salk Institute, and Sharp Hospital. One of his greatest prides in his later years was serving as a board member of the San Diego Air & Space Museum , whose space fl ight gallery is named after him. Another great source of pride for Wally Schirra was the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation . The surviving Mercury astronauts decided to use their joint credibility to encourage students to pursue scientifi c endeavors in order to help to keep America on the 250 Epilogue: Final salute to a hero Jo and Wally Schirra were VIP guests at the launch of Space Shuttle Columbia from the Kennedy Space Center on 4 April 1997 for mission STS-83.