Apollo 7

• 1. Introduction

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  Apollo 7 launched on the 11th of October, 1968, the first American spacecraft to carry a crew in nearly two years. The men inside were not breaking new ground in terms of distance or destination. They never left Earth orbit. But the question hanging over every minute of their eleven-day flight was far more basic: could the redesigned Apollo spacecraft be trusted with human lives?

  Twenty months earlier, on the 27th of January, 1967, a fire had broken out during a routine launch-pad test at Cape Kennedy. Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died inside their capsule before anyone could reach them. The inward-opening hatch could not be opened fast enough. The program halted. Everything was rebuilt. Every assumption was questioned.

  Now three new men were strapped into that rebuilt machine: Commander Walter M. Schirra, a veteran of both Mercury and Gemini; Command Module Pilot Donn F. Eisele; and Lunar Module Pilot R. Walter Cunningham. And from the moment they lifted off, they were not entirely on the same side as the people on the ground talking to them.

• 2. The Men Who Flew

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  Walter Schirra had been to space twice before Apollo 7. He flew Mercury-Atlas 8 in 1962, the fifth crewed Mercury flight, and commanded Gemini 6A in 1965. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1945 and was a 45-year-old Navy captain at the time of Apollo 7. His ascent made him the oldest person to have entered space to that point, and the only astronaut who ever flew all three programs: Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.

  Donn Eisele graduated from the Naval Academy in 1952 with a degree in aeronautics, then chose a commission in the Air Force. He was a 38-year-old major when Apollo 7 flew. He had originally been slotted for Gus Grissom's Apollo 1 crew, but a shoulder injury days before the official announcement in March 1966 cost him that seat. Roger Chaffee took the position instead.

  Walter Cunningham joined the Navy in 1951 and earned his physics degrees from UCLA, a B.A. in 1960 and an M.A. in 1961. He was 36, a civilian serving in the Marine Corps reserves as a major. Both Eisele and Cunningham had been selected in the third astronaut group in 1963. Cunningham was thrilled to be assigned to a prime crew without having served as a backup first, though he was privately uneasy about the original plan, which had called for a second Earth-orbital test mission that seemed redundant to him if Apollo 1 succeeded.

  The backup crew for Apollo 7 was Thomas Stafford, John Young, and Gene Cernan. That trio later flew together as the prime crew of Apollo 10.

• 3. After the Fire

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  In the aftermath of the Apollo 1 accident, the redesign of the spacecraft was sweeping. More than 1,800 changes were recommended; 1,300 of those were put in place before Apollo 7 flew. The most visible change was the hatch. The old inward-opening door that had trapped the Apollo 1 crew was replaced by an outward-opening aluminum and fiberglass hatch. The crew could open it from inside in seven seconds. The pad crew could open it from outside in ten.

  Aluminum tubing in the high-pressure oxygen system was replaced with stainless steel. Plastic switches were swapped for metal ones. Flammable materials throughout the cabin were replaced with non-flammable alternatives. An emergency oxygen system was added to protect the crew from toxic fumes, along with firefighting equipment. And the atmospheric mix at launch was changed: the cabin would use 60 percent oxygen and 40 percent nitrogen on the pad, transitioning to a lower-pressure pure oxygen environment within four hours of launch.

  The Apollo 7 crew was deeply involved in overseeing that work. They spent long stretches at North American Aviation's plant in Downey, California, watching their command module take shape. The simulators at Houston's Manned Spacecraft Center and at Kennedy Space Center were not ready yet, which gave them time on the assembly floor. Once training could begin in earnest, the crew often worked 12 or 14 hours a day. They trained at MIT on the Apollo Guidance Computer. Each crew member logged 160 hours in command module simulations. They trained five hours for every expected hour of mission time.

  One test echoed the tragedy they were working to prevent. The "plugs out" test, the same test that had killed the Apollo 1 crew, was conducted with the Apollo 7 prime crew inside the spacecraft. This time, the hatch was left open.

• 4. Hardware and Launch

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  Command and Service Module 101, the spacecraft that flew Apollo 7, was the first Block II CSM to leave the ground with a crew. The Block II design was built for the lunar missions, unlike the Block I used on Apollo 1, which could not dock with a lunar module. Since Apollo 7 carried no lunar module, the adapter structure that normally held one was fitted with a structural stiffener instead.

  Apollo 7 did not need the Saturn V. Because it stayed in low Earth orbit, it launched on the Saturn IB, designated SA-205, the fifth Saturn IB to fly. That rocket's J-2 engines had been given stronger propellant lines to prevent the early shutdown that had occurred on the uncrewed Apollo 6 flight. The Saturn IB's second stage was an S-IVB, the same type used as the third stage of the Saturn V.

  Launch Complex 34 at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station was the site. Liftoff came at 11:02:45 in the morning, Eastern time, on the 11th of October, 1968. Schirra later said he believed the launch should have been called off: wind was blowing in from the east, which violated safety rules because an abort might push the capsule back over land. Managers waived the rule. He yielded.

  The Saturn IB performed without significant problems on its first crewed flight. Launch Complex 34 was decommissioned in 1969 after Apollo 7 became the last human spaceflight to lift off from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station in the 20th century. All later Apollo and Skylab missions launched from the nearby Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39.

  Schirra had also fought to bring back launch pad chief Guenter Wendt, who had run pad operations for McDonnell Aircraft during Mercury and Gemini but was not the pad leader for Apollo 1 because the contractor had changed. Schirra had Deke Slayton pressure North American management to hire Wendt away from McDonnell, and personally lobbied North American's launch operations manager to put Wendt on the day shift so he could lead the Apollo 7 pad team. Wendt went on to serve as pad leader for the entire Apollo program.

• 5. Orbit and Friction

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  Within three hours of launch, the crew ran two simulations of maneuvers they would need on lunar missions. First they fired the engine with the S-IVB still attached, replicating the burn that would push a Moon-bound spacecraft out of Earth orbit. Then Schirra separated the CSM, turned it around, and flew up to a docking target painted on the S-IVB. Cunningham noted the adapter panels had not fully opened, which Tom Stafford, serving as CAPCOM, compared to the "angry alligator" from his Gemini 9A flight. That observation prompted a fix: on all later missions, the SLA panels were jettisoned after CSM separation.

  The crew shared the first hot meal ever prepared on an American spacecraft. Schirra had brought instant coffee over the objections of NASA doctors, who argued it added nothing nutritionally. Five hours after launch, he reported drinking his first plastic bag full of coffee and enjoying it.

  The mission's first live television broadcast came on the 14th of October. It opened with a card reading "From the Lovely Apollo Room high atop everything", a reference to 1930s radio broadcast tag lines. Cunningham operated the camera; Eisele served as emcee. Over seven minutes, they showed off the cabin and offered views of the southern United States. Schirra closed by holding a second sign: "Keep those cards and letters coming in folks", borrowing a phrase recently used by Dean Martin. Gordon Cooper had sent slow-scan television pictures from Faith7 in 1963, but those were never broadcast. This was the first live television from an American spacecraft. After the mission, the crew received a special Emmy Award for the telecasts.

  But the television broadcast also produced the mission's first major confrontation with Mission Control. Schirra refused to air the broadcast before the rendezvous, citing the cold he had developed, an already full schedule, and the crew's need to prepare for a critical test. He stated his view directly: television would be delayed without further discussion until after the rendezvous. Flight controllers were surprised by his tone. Eisele later wrote that to those on the ground, the crew seemed hotheaded and recalcitrant.

  On Day 8, a procedure sent up from the ground caused the computer to freeze. Eisele radioed Houston that they had not gotten the results they were after, adding language that Mission Control found insubordinate. The following day, Schirra asked controllers to identify the person who had designed a test that required repeated firings of the reaction control system thrusters just to keep the spacecraft stable.

  The most sustained conflict came over helmets. Schirra and his crewmates had head colds. He was concerned their eardrums could burst from sinus pressure during reentry if they could not pinch their noses to equalize the pressure. Wearing helmets would make that impossible. Over several days Schirra refused to accept Mission Control's recommendation that helmets be worn during reentry, stating it was his right as commander to decide. Director of Flight Operations Christopher C. Kraft demanded an explanation. No helmets were worn. Kraft later said: "Schirra was exercising his commander's right to have the last word, and that was that."

  The service propulsion system engine, which had never been fired in space before, performed cleanly. By mission's end it had been fired eight times without a problem.

• 6. Splashdown and Consequences

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  Apollo 7 splashed down at 11:11:48 UTC on the 22nd of October, 1968, roughly 200 nautical miles south-southwest of Bermuda and 7 nautical miles north of the recovery ship USS Essex. The mission had lasted 10 days, 20 hours, 9 minutes, and 3 seconds.

  NASA judged the flight a complete technical success. Apollo Program Manager General Sam Phillips said Apollo 7 went into his book as a perfect mission, one that accomplished 101 percent of its objectives. Three weeks after the crew returned, NASA administrator Thomas Paine gave the green light for Apollo 8 to launch in late December and orbit the Moon. The redesigned command and service module had proved itself.

  But none of the three crew members ever flew in space again. Schirra had already announced before the flight that he would retire from NASA and the Navy, effective the 1st of July, 1969. The situation for Eisele and Cunningham was different. Kraft reportedly told Slayton he was unwilling to work in future with any member of the crew. When Cunningham confronted Kraft about the rumor in early 1969, Kraft denied the statement but, as Cunningham recalled, his reaction was not exactly outraged innocence.

  Eisele served as backup command module pilot for Apollo 10, a role he performed without distinction. He also became the first active astronaut to divorce and quickly remarry, which may have damaged his standing. He left the Astronaut Office in 1970 and stayed at the Langley Research Center in Virginia until 1972, when he retired. He died in 1987. Cunningham was put in charge of the Astronaut Office's Skylab division and was informally offered command of the first Skylab crew, but when that went to Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad instead, Cunningham resigned as an astronaut in 1971.

  On the 2nd of November, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson held a ceremony at the LBJ Ranch in Johnson City, Texas, where he presented Schirra, Eisele, and Cunningham with NASA's Exceptional Service Medal. He also gave the Distinguished Service Medal, NASA's highest honor, to recently retired administrator James E. Webb. In October 2008, NASA administrator Michael D. Griffin awarded the Distinguished Service Medal to the Apollo 7 crew belatedly, citing their exemplary performance in meeting all mission objectives and paving the way for Apollo 8 and Apollo 11. By then, only Cunningham was still alive. Schirra had died in 2007; Eisele's widow accepted his medal. Bill Anders, who had flown on Apollo 8, accepted Schirra's. At the ceremony, Kraft sent a video message to Cunningham saying he was frankly very proud to call him a friend.