Love Quote by Wally Schirra

Schirra’s charm here is inseparable from the flex. He answers a starry-eyed question about riding the Space Shuttle the way a test pilot answers an invitation to sit in the passenger seat of his own mythology: no thanks, unless he’s in charge. The line lands because it’s both funny and dead serious, a little jab at the idea that spaceflight is a theme-park experience and a reminder that for his generation, the romance was welded to responsibility.

The key move is the aside: “you don’t get to fly it, except for landing.” That’s insider talk, meant to puncture the public’s assumption that astronauts are constantly wrestling the machine. Shuttle operations were heavily automated; the astronaut as swashbuckling stick-and-rudder hero was already becoming an anachronism. Schirra names that shift without lamenting it outright, then pivots to the one moment where skill still feels mythic: landing, the high-stakes, no-go-around finale that separates “crew” from “cargo.”

Underneath the bravado is a values statement from Mercury-era culture: risk is only acceptable when paired with agency. “I wouldn’t go unless I could command it” isn’t merely ego; it’s a philosophy of accountability. Command means you own the decision-making, the danger, and the outcome. In an era when astronauts were becoming managers of complex systems rather than lone-handed pilots, Schirra makes clear which identity he’s keeping.