Walter Cunningham, the last surviving astronaut from the first successful crewed space mission in NASA’s Apollo program, has died.

HOUSTON – NASA and Apollo 7 NASA astronaut Walter Cunningham weighed in on SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission, which would be the first all-civilian astronaut mission. Monday, SpaceX announced that by the end of the fourth quarter of this year, it will attempt Inspiration4 – the world’s first all-commercial astronaut mission to orbit from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. SpaceX told NBC one of the seats will go to a former childhood patient of St. Jude who is cured of cancer and is now a medical staffer at the hospital. NASA Commercial Spaceflight Division Director Phil MacAlister said NASA’s Commercial Crew Program envisioned this milestone when they started the program more than a decade ago. This multi-day journey, orbiting Earth every 90 minutes along a customized flight path, will be carefully monitored at every step by SpaceX mission control.