mr. cunningham. >> mr. cunningham, a pleasure to meet you. you are selected as a pilot because of your ability to handle stress. i would assume most pilots have a natural ability to handle stress. can you remark on any training protocols that nasa, whether they be psychological, medical or nutritional, that would enhance your ability to deal with stress under difficult conditions? >> that is another thing that is a big difference today. maybe it is because of the attitudes of the guys at that time. we did not allow nasa to really turn you into a specimen often. i still get my annual physical at nasa every year. because they're keeping a history of people that have gone into space. and i like it because i get to do my physical. but today, astronauts are a whole lot more specimens in the scientific field. then they used to be. heart of that is the reaction to what happened in those days with us ancient astronauts. i was not as obnoxious and outspoken as some of them could be. but i do know this. after the pilot program was over , management beg

mr. cunningham, a pleasure to meet you. you were selected as a pilot because of your ability to handle stress. i would assume most pilots have a natural ability to handle stress. can you remark on any training protocols that nasa, whether they be psychological, medical or nutritional, that would enhance your ability to deal with stress under difficult conditions? >> that is another thing that is a big difference today. maybe it is because of the attitudes of the guys at that time. we did not allow nasa to really turn you into a specimen often. i still get my annual physical at nasa every year. because they're keeping a history of people that have gone into space. and i like it because i get to do my physical. but today, astronauts are a whole lot more specimens in the scientific field. then they used to be. heart of that is the reaction to what happened in those days with .us ancient astronauts. i was not as obnoxious and outspoken as some of them could be. but i do know this. after the pilot program was over, management be

mr. ney wrote a book about his experience. that is q&a tonight at 7:00 eastern. also, conversations with astronauts and private citizens who have flown into space. the program begins with walter cunningham, lunar module pilot on apollo seven in 1968 nasa's third civilian astronaut talked about the early apollo missions among the space race with the russians, and the future of nasa in a conversation at the explorers club in new york city in october. here is a preview. >> apollo seven to this day is the longest, most ambitious most successful engineering test flight of any new machine ever and the reason it was so loaded was because we had lost 21 months after the apollo one fire , a year and a half -- maybe a little less because there was another flight in there -- to go to the moon, and we had to do it supposedly by the end of the decade. so we were trying to make up for that. when we went out for an 11-day mission, none of us we were going to go 11 days. you could not do that on the first mission. we were actually surprised and a little year attended toward the end. no film left, nothing, but still had to go three more days. that was critical and because it was so successful, apollo 8

cunningham of champagne, illinois. he suffered a stroke earlier in his childhood and he wrote to mr. kirk in the hospital after the senator's stroke in january of 2012. the two became pen pals during the senator's hospital say it stay. jackson cunningham will be the governor's guest tonight at the state of the union address. and earlier, house armed services committee chair congressman mac thornberry outlined the committee's agenda for the 114th congress, focusing on defense policy and national security issues. former u.s. senator and current a.e.i. senior fellow moderates this discussion. >> welcome, everybody. it's a great pleasure to be mcing this event which means i introduce our honored guest and have an opportunity to chat with him for a couple of minutes before we take your questions. so be thinking of those questions. when you ask them, please wait for the microphone. identify yourself and then make certain you give him a question rather than a statement. we'd all appreciate that. it was very encouraging for me personally when this gentleman, as expected, took over the house a

mr. ney wrote a book about his experience. also tonight, conversations with astronauts and private citizens who have flown into space. the program begins with walter cunningham, the lunar module pilot in 1968. nasa's third civilian astronaut talked about the early apollo missions, the space race with the russians, and the future of nasa during a conversation with the explorers club in october. here is a preview. >> apollo seven is to this day the most ambitious, successful engineering test flight of any new machine ever. the reason it was so loaded, a planned 11 day first mission was because we lost 21 months after the apollo one fire. we would have had another flight in their, to go to the moon. and we had to do it by the end of the decade. so we were trying to make up for all of that. when we went up for an 11 day mission, none of us thought we were going to go 11 days. you could not do that on a first mission. so we worse apprised and little bit irritated. we still had to go to more days. >> what a shower when you got back. >> it was critical because it was so successful, apollo eight went out and went around the moon. >> you can see that entire conversat