Ronnie Walter Cunningham (March 16, 1932 – January 3, 2023) was an American astronaut, fighter pilot, physicist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and author of the 1977 book The All-American Boys.

[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.

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 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.

[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.

[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.