R. Walter Cunningham
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R. Walter Cunningham
Ronnie Walter Cunningham (born March 16, 1932) is a retired American astronaut. In 1968, he was a lunar module pilot on the Apollo 7 mission. He was NASA's third civilian astronaut (after Neil Armstrong and Elliot See), and has also been a fighter pilot, physicist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author of the 1977 book ''The All-American Boys''. Following the deaths of Donn F. Eisele in 1987 and Wally Schirra in 2007, Cunningham is the last surviving crew member of Apollo 7. Biography Early life, education and military career Cunningham was born in Creston, Iowa, on March 16, 1932. He graduated from Venice High School in Los Angeles, California, in 1950. After graduating from high school, Cunningham studied at Santa Monica College, until he joined the U.S. Navy in 1951, and began flight training in 1952. He served on active duty as a fighter pilot with the U.S. Marine Corps from 1953 until 1956, flying 54 missions as a night fighter pilot in Korea. Armistice discussion ...
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NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), to give the U.S. space development effort a distinctly civilian orientation, emphasizing peaceful applications in space science. NASA has since led most American space exploration, including Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the 1968-1972 Apollo Moon landing missions, the Skylab space station, and the Space Shuttle. NASA supports the International Space Station and oversees the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System for the crewed lunar Artemis program, Commercial Crew spacecraft, and the planned Lunar Gateway space station. The agency is also responsible for the Launch Services Program, which provides oversight of launch operations and countdown management f ...
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NASA Distinguished Service Medal
The NASA Distinguished Service Medal is the highest award that can be bestowed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States. The medal may be presented to any member of the federal government, including both military astronauts and civilian employees. The NASA Distinguished Service Medal is awarded to those who display distinguished service, ability, or courage, and have personally made a contribution representing substantial progress to the NASA mission. The contribution must be so extraordinary that other forms of recognition would be inadequate. Typical presentations of the NASA Distinguished Service Medal included awards to senior NASA administrators, mission control leaders, and astronauts who have completed several successful space flights. Due to the prestige of the award, the decoration is authorized for wear on active uniforms of the United States military. Another such authorized decoration is the NASA Space Flight Medal. Upon the rec ...
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Flight Training
Flight training is a course of study used when learning to pilot an aircraft. The overall purpose of primary and intermediate flight training is the acquisition and honing of basic airmanship skills. Flight training can be conducted under a structured accredited syllabus with a flight instructor at a flight school or as private lessons with no syllabus with a flight instructor as long as all experience requirements for the desired pilot certificate/license are met. Typically flight training consists of a combination of two parts: * ''Flight Lessons'' given in the aircraft or in a certified Flight Training Device . * ''Ground School'' primarily given as a classroom lecture or lesson by a flight instructor where aeronautical theory is learned in preparation for the student's written, oral, and flight pilot certification/licensing examinations. Although there are various types of aircraft, many of the principles of piloting them have common techniques, especially those aircraft ...
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Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world's most populous megacities. Los Angeles is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits , Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The city of Los Angeles lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to it's east. It covers about , and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estim ...
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Venice High School (Los Angeles)
Venice High School (VHS) is a public school located in the Westside area of Los Angeles, California and within the Local District West area of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). History The school was established in 1911 (then called "Venice Union Polytechnic High School") when classes were held in an old lagoon bathhouse two blocks from the beach. It moved to a new neo-romanesque structure at its present 29-acre campus two miles inland a decade later. A famous statue, installed in 1922 and for which then-unknown Venice High School student Myrna Loy served as model, stood on the front lawn of Venice High School for over 70 years. An unsightly cage was erected to prevent vandalism, but the statue was ultimately removed and sent to indoor storage in 1998. However, a bronze-cast replacement statue was mounted before 2,000 cheering onlookers in an April 2010 ceremony. On March 10, 1933, the school was seriously damaged by the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. As a resu ...
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Wally Schirra
Walter Marty Schirra Jr. (, March 12, 1923 – May 3, 2007) was an American naval aviator, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. In 1959, he became one of the original seven astronauts chosen for Project Mercury, which was the United States' first effort to put human beings into space. On October 3, 1962, he flew the six-orbit, nine-hour, Mercury-Atlas 8 mission, in a spacecraft he nicknamed ''Sigma 7''. At the time of his mission in ''Sigma 7'', Schirra became the fifth American and ninth human to travel into space. In the two-man Gemini program, he achieved the first space rendezvous, station-keeping his Gemini 6A spacecraft within of the sister Gemini 7 spacecraft in December 1965. In October 1968, he commanded Apollo 7, an 11-day low Earth orbit shakedown test of the three-man Apollo Command/Service Module and the first crewed launch for the Apollo program. Before becoming an astronaut, Schirra graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Ac ...
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Donn F
In Irish mythology, Donn ("the dark one", from cel-x-proto, Dhuosnos) is an ancestor of the Gaels and is believed to have been a List of death deities, god of the dead. Donn is said to dwell in Tech Duinn (the "house of Donn" or "house of the dark one"), where the souls of the dead gather. He may have originally been an aspect of the Dagda. Folklore about Donn survived into the modern era in parts of Ireland, in which he is said to be a phantom horseman riding a white horse. Early literary sources A 9th-century poem says that Donn's dying wish was that all his descendants would gather at Donn's house or ''Tech Duinn'' (modern Irish ''Teach Duinn'') after death: "To me, to my house, you shall all come after your deaths". The 10th-century tale ''Airne Fíngein'' ("Fíngen's Vigil") says that Tech Duinn is where the souls of the dead gather. In their translation of ''Acallam na Senórach'', Ann Dooley and Harry Roe commented that "to go to the House of Donn in Irish tradition mean ...
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Venture Capitalist
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which have demonstrated high growth (in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc). Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing risky start-ups in the hopes that some of the firms they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. The start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are usually from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology. The typical venture capital investment occurs after an initial "seed funding" round. The first round ...
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Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate causes of phenomena, and usually frame their understanding in mathematical terms. Physicists work across a wide range of research fields, spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic and particle physics, through biological physics, to cosmological length scales encompassing the universe as a whole. The field generally includes two types of physicists: experimental physicists who specialize in the observation of natural phenomena and the development and analysis of experiments, and theoretical physicists who specialize in mathematical modeling of physical systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. Physicists can apply their knowledge towards solving practical problems or to developing new technologies (also known as applie ...
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Fighter Pilot
A fighter pilot is a military aviator trained to engage in air-to-air combat, air-to-ground combat and sometimes electronic warfare while in the cockpit of a fighter aircraft. Fighter pilots undergo specialized training in aerial warfare and dogfighting (close range aerial combat). A fighter pilot with at least five air-to-air kills becomes known as an ace. Recruitment Fighter pilots are one of the most highly regarded and desirable positions of any air force. Selection processes only accept the elite out of all the potential candidates. An individual who possesses an exceptional academic record, physical fitness, healthy well-being, and a strong mental drive will have a higher chance of being selected for pilot training. Candidates are also expected to exhibit strong leadership and teamwork abilities. As such, in nearly all air forces, fighter pilots, as are pilots of most other aircraft, are commissioned officers. Fitness Fighter pilots must be in optimal health to ...
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Elliot See
Elliot McKay See Jr. (July 23, 1927 – February 28, 1966) was an American engineer, naval aviator, test pilot and NASA astronaut. See received an appointment to the United States Merchant Marine Academy in 1945. He graduated in 1949 with a Bachelor of Science degree in marine engineering and a United States Naval Reserve commission, and joined the Aircraft Gas Turbine Division of General Electric as an engineer. He was called to active duty as a naval aviator during the Korean War, and flew Grumman F9F Panther fighters with Fighter Squadron 144 (VF-144) from the aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean, and in the Western Pacific. He married Marilyn Denahy in 1954, and they had three children. See rejoined General Electric (GE) in 1956 as a flight test engineer after his tour of duty, and became a group leader and experimental test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base, where he flew the latest jet aircraft with GE engines. He also obtained a Master of Science degree in aeronautica ...
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Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and aeronautical engineer who became the first person to walk on the Moon in 1969. He was also a naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. Armstrong was born and raised in Wapakoneta, Ohio. A graduate of Purdue University, he studied aeronautical engineering; his college tuition was paid for by the U.S. Navy under the Holloway Plan. He became a midshipman in 1949 and a naval aviator the following year. He saw action in the Korean War, flying the Grumman F9F Panther from the aircraft carrier . In September 1951, while making a low bombing run, Armstrong's aircraft was damaged when it collided with an anti-aircraft cable, strung across a valley, which cut off a large portion of one wing. Armstrong was forced to bail out. After the war, he completed his bachelor's degree at Purdue and became a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High-Speed Fligh ...
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