Cunningham married the former Lo Ella Irby of Norwalk, California, and had two children, Brian and Kimberley. Walter and Lo Ella eventually divorced. In addition to his sister and his children, he was survived by his second wife, retired Houston businesswoman Dorothy "Dot" Cunningham.[5][6]
Upon completing his service obligation, Cunningham resumed his studies at Santa Monica College before transferring to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1958.[3] Cunningham received his Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in 1960, and his Master of Arts degree with distinction in 1961, both in physics, from UCLA. He completed all requirements save for the dissertation for a Doctor of Philosophy degree in physics at UCLA during his time at RAND Corporation, where he spent three years prior to his NASA selection.[1]
In October 1963, Cunningham was one of the third group of astronauts selected by NASA. On October 11, 1968, he occupied the Lunar Module Pilot seat for the eleven-day flight of Apollo 7, the first launch of a crewed Apollo mission.[1] The flight carried no Lunar Module and Cunningham was responsible for all spacecraft systems except launch and navigation. The crew kept busy with myriad system tests, including successfully completed test firing of the service module engine and measuring the accuracy of the spacecraft systems.[7] Following the mission, Cunningham went on to head up the Skylab branch of the Flight Crew Directorate and left NASA in 1971.[8][1]
Cunningham accumulated more than 4,500 hours of flying time, including more than 3,400 in jet aircraft and 263 hours in space.[1]
Later life
In 1974, Cunningham attended Harvard Business School's six-week Advanced Management Program and later worked as a businessman and investor in a number of private ventures.[1] In 1977, he published The All-American Boys, a reminiscence of his astronaut days.[9] He was also a major contributor to and foreword writer for the 2007 space history book In the Shadow of the Moon.[10] In 2018, Cunningham joined the Back to Space organization as an Astronaut Consultant with the goal of inspiring the next generation to go to Mars.[11]
In 2008, NASA awarded Cunningham the NASA Distinguished Service Medal for his Apollo 7 mission.[12] He became a radio talk-show host and public speaker, worked as a consultant to start-up technology companies, and was chairman of the Texas Aerospace Commission.[1]
Death
Cunningham died in Houston on January 3, 2023, at age 90, from complications resulting from a fall.[13][14]
Global warming views
Cunningham rejected the scientific consensus on climate change. His biography page at the CO2 Coalition said "Since 2000, he has been writing and speaking out on the hoax that humans are controlling the temperature of the earth."[15]
In 2010, Cunningham published a short book titled "Global Warming: Facts versus Faith".[16] In an editorial published in the Houston Chronicle on August 15, 2010, Cunningham claimed that the empirical evidence did not support global warming.[17] In 2012, he and other former astronauts and NASA employees sent a critical letter to the agency highlighting what they believed to be "unproven assertions that man-made carbon dioxide was a major factor in global warming."[18]
