86-year-old astronaut asks NASA to push its limits

Apollo 7 astronaut, Walt Cunningham, decided to join NASA almost six decades ago, but this 86 year old man still remembers the day as if it was yesterday.

On May 5, 1961, he was crossing the mountains of Santa Monica to get to the job that he held part-time while earning his PhD in physics from the University of California at Los Angeles. It was early – before 7 am, remembers – and on the radio, the Mercury space flight countdown was going to make Alan Shepard the first American in space.

Cunningham has stopped. And as the count counted to take off, he heard himself shout, "You are a lucky son!"

Less than three years later, in 1963, Cunningham was hired as an astronaut. And at an event Friday at Space Center Houston, he called it "one of the greatest jobs in the world."

Cunningham's speech took place on Friday, October 11, 1968, less than a week before the 50th anniversary of his first space flight, Apollo 7.

Nine months later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left footprints on the moon.

"When we talk about Apollo today, the public remembers Apollo 11 of course … and sometimes of Apollo 13, because they made this film" cried Cunningham. "They rarely remember Apollo 7 … but [it was] a test mission that played a crucial role in the most historical achievement of the country's history. "

Cunningham, originally from Iowa, was a fighter pilot before becoming an astronaut. And he remembers the 1960s and 1970s as "the golden age of spaceflight".

Cunningham said, "It took a team willing to put their head in their eyes … ready to risk failure." "At that time, we shared the same dream: to test the limits of man's imagination and daring. This attitude allowed us to overcome all obstacles. "

This is the main difference between the Apollo era and the present day: society is today a "society opposed to risk", he said.

Today's Americans are so focused on "eliminating risk and getting absolute assurance that something can be done," he said. "The once exuberant agency was paralyzed by the desire of a risk-free society."

He has also become incredibly political, he said, which only compromises his ability to take risks.

"Today, our great aspirations are usually at the mercy of politicians," who focus on survival in power, he said. "We can not just be politically correct. We must be ready to do what is right, even if it is not popular. "

He encouraged all members of the audience to take risks and take risks: there are benefits to be learned from failures and what one learns from them.

"Our only real limits are the ones we impose on ourselves," he said.