Astronaut Walter M. "Wally" Schirra, Jr. was born in Hackensack, New Jersey on March 12, 1923. At Newark College of Engineering (now the New Jersey Institute of Technology), he studied aeronautical engineering from 1940 to 1942. He was appointed to the United States Naval Academy in 1942 and received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1945. After serving in the Navy during the final months of World War II, he trained as a pilot at NAS Pensacola. During the Korean War, he was dispatched as an exchange pilot on loan to the United State Air Force and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal for his service.
In 1959, he was one of the original seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, which was the first effort made by the United States to put men in space. He was the only man to fly in the first three space programs and logged a total of 295 hours and 15 minutes in space. After resigning from NASA in 1969, he became a businessman. In 1984, he and the other Mercury astronauts helped establish the Mercury Seven Foundation (now the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation) to raise money for science and engineering scholarships. He died at home on May 3, 2007.
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