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The Apollo 7 was the first Apollo manned mission, flown to check out the new Apollo launch systems, the Command Module and its ability to fly in space, navigation and rendezvous procedures with a host of lesser tests.

Apollo 7 was Honeysuckle’s (and the tracking network’s) first taste of manned Apollo flights. It was not very exciting on the ground – for me it was just a continuation of the Carnarvon Gemini flights – grabs of signals for up to 12 minutes every 90 minutes as the spacecraft orbits the Earth while the crew evaluated the Apollo spacecraft for manned flight.

At Honeysuckle Creek we had a quick visit from Goddard’s NASA 421 Sim Team led by Jim Kennedy on 2 Tuesday July 1968 to check us out. However the aircraft only flew for us on 5 Friday and 6 Saturday July.

 

The crew selected by Deke Slayton were Wally Schirra, Commander; Donn Eisele, Command Module Pilot and Walter Cunningham, Lunar Module Pilot (with no LM). The back-up team were Tom Stafford, John Young, and Eugene Cernan.

Cunningham:

Schirra, son of a WWI fighter ace and a barnstorming, aerial wing-walking mother, was a cool and professional pilot. He was 45 years old and the oldest astronaut to enter space at the time. He was the only astronaut to fly all three Projects – Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, while both Eisele and Cunningham were first timers. Schirra had already handed in his resignation from NASA two weeks before the mission, saying he wanted to quit while he was ahead, and he wanted it to be clear that he was single-minded about the Apollo 7 mission – that he cared for nothing else. He reckoned he had matured over the years and was no longer the boy in scarf and goggles, the jolly Wally of space age lore. So anything he did would not jeopardise his career.

After the death of his three friends in the Apollo 1 fire, he took a good hard look at where the space program was headed. Before the investigation into the fire had ended he took his crew, the back-up crew and all the support crew to a borrowed house in Miami. To get their minds off the fatal accident they cut all communication with the outside world and conducted intense training sessions to fit their responsibilities into the upcoming schedule. He decided then that he wasn’t going to be influenced by extraneous scientific and political interests. He would not tolerate anything or anyone that would affect the safety of the mission or the crew.

He became a new Schirra. Chris Kraft described him as raising hell, bitching and hollering about everything. For instance he was told there would be no coffee on the ship. “You’re asking a Navy guy to give up coffee,” he exploded and fought all the way to the top to have coffee included in the stores. At one top brass conference in Houston, during the break the refreshment trolley was wheeled in without any coffee. In response to the outrage he got up and said, “Gentlemen, since you deem it inappropriate for the crew of Apollo 7 to drink coffee during the mission, I thought you might try doing without it for just one day.” He won his point.

Apollo 7 was a trial Block II Command Module which had the capability to accommodate the Lunar Module, but did not have docking facilities, or the transfer tunnel to the Lunar Module, as there was no LM. Schirra wanted to call his spacecraft Phoenix but NASA declined.

Schirra voiced his concern about the weather at launch. As this was the first time men were going to ride a Saturn rocket into space, there was a chance it might have to be aborted during the launch phase. Tests had shown that to land on hard ground with the early Block I couches they would be using would almost certainly injure the occupants, so Schirra insisted that one of the launch rules should be a maximum onshore breeze of 18 knots, so they could land with the parachutes in water if they had to abort.

 

Launch

On launch day, 11 October 1968, a high-pressure system over Nova Scotia created an easterly wind varying between 20 and 25 knots – blowing straight inland. The temperature was 28.3°C and relative humidity 65% with cumulonimbus clouds with a base at 2,100 feet. Over in Houston Gene Kranz’s team began the countdown, checking out the mission control center, and handed over to Gerry Griffin’s gang to check out the spacecraft. Glynn Lunney’s flight controllers handled the day shift for the actual launch.

At 2235 AEST the crew crawled into the spacecraft two and a half hours before launch while at Honeysuckle Creek we were busy with Site Readiness Tests, preparing for the first glimpse of the spacecraft. We were listening to the progress of the countdown on an intercomm channel which didn’t tell us much.

By Schirra’s rule the launch should have been postponed, but they decided to go, and the Saturn IB, a scaled down Saturn V, thundered into the air at 1102:45 USEDT 11 October 1968 (0102:45 AEST 12 October) from Pad 34. Schirra described the launch as “… a sense of elation when the bolts blow, the hold-downs release and the big maumoo leaves the launch pad.” But the elation of lift-off was tempered with anger at his safety rule being broken. He felt better as they progressed safely through the abort stages, the Saturn giving a smoother ride than he had experienced in either the Mercury or Gemini flights. The Saturn IB was a much smoother ride than the bigger and more powerful Saturn V.

 

The launch of the Apollo 7 Saturn IB. From an Apollo Archive scan.

 

Cunningham described his experience of his first and last launch,

 

The launch of the Apollo 7 Saturn IB, as viewed from a USAF Eastern Test Range KC-135 piloted by Lt. Col. Robert L. Mosley. From an ApolloArchive.com scan.

 

In deference to the Apollo 1 fire, when the cabin was filled with pure oxygen, the cabin atmosphere at launch was 65% oxygen and 35% nitrogen (though the suits had pure oxygen) but was purged to 100% oxygen for the rest of the mission at a pressure of 34.5 kPa.

Apollo 7 entered Earth orbit at 0113:11 AEST 12 October and took up an initial orbit of 227.8 by 282.1 kilometres with an orbital period of 89.5 minutes and a speed of 28,015 kilometres per hour.

Eighty minutes after launch, disaster struck at Mission Control. A power failure plunged the busy room into semi-darkness and blacked out all the consoles. Flight controllers stared helplessly at blank screens and dead displays with only the emergency lights for their eyes to focus on. Power was restored within two minutes and the mission continued with no interruption as far as we were concerned.

The crew spent the first day test firing the SPS (Service Propulsion System) engine, beginning at 0327:40 AEST, and practising rendezvous manoeuvres with the SIVB. The SPS was the largest engine to be manually thrust vector controlled. When they first experienced the boost from it, pressing them into their couches, Schirra involuntarily whooped “Yabbadabbadoo” Eisele felt: “It was a real boot in the rear. We got more than we expected.”

Eight firings resulted in eight almost perfect burns to prove beyond doubt the engine was reliable. It had to be, because this was the engine to put the spacecraft in and out of lunar orbit in the upcoming missions.

The Saturn IVB stage during docking manoeuvres over the Gulf of California. ApolloArchive.com scan processed by Ed Hengeveld.

The Saturn IVB stage during docking manoeuvres over New Orleans. The white disc is a simulated docking target. ApolloArchive.com scan processed by Ed Hengeveld.

 

Illness

Then: “Surprise! On our second day in orbit, Wally Schirra woke up with the Grand Daddy of all head colds – hardly a fair reward for the three hours of sleep we had enjoyed following a launch day that was 23 hours long. Fair or not, it quickly turned our cosy little spacecraft into a used Kleenex container,” Cunningham said.

Schirra called down to mission control to say he was thinking of taking an antibiotic or decongestant, but the surgeon on duty recommended only a decongestant. This was the first illness in space in the American space program.

Cunningham,

A common head cold in space is bad news as mucus accumulates in the nasal passages and does not drain out of the head. Schirra tried blowing hard into tissues but found it only made the eardrums uncomfortably painful.

 

Wally Schirra looking rather haggard on 14 October 1968. From an ApolloArchive.com scan processed by Ed Hengeveld.

 

Cunningham,

Later Eisele developed a runny nose giving an impression that the entire spacecraft was rife with colds, but according to Cunningham only Wally had a real problem. Eisele’s symptoms did not develop, and Cunningham never suffered any affliction at all.

Donn Eisele during the mission. From an ApolloArchive.com scan processed by Ed Hengeveld.

 

Once the mission settled down, for us each tracking period began as a brief pass in the north east, each pass increasing in duration until the spacecraft crossed overhead with maximum duration of around 11 minutes then the passes shortened as the spacecraft worked its way out of sight into the north west. The first and last passes might only be a minute. It meant we had endless H-30 countdowns (30 minutes to the spacecraft Acquisition of Signal) every 90 minutes, except when the spacecraft went out of sight for a few hours, when the astronauts usually had their sleep periods. During this period their orbit took them over China and South America, well out of our range. This monotonous routine went on for the whole mission.

With Schirra’s irritability, angry at his launch rules being broken, and suffering the head cold in the confined cabin of the spacecraft, he became decidedly difficult with mission control when they wanted to change the flight plan. When the Houston flight controllers tossed some changes into the schedule, Schirra showed his annoyance. He had always opposed the television system being installed on his flight – he saw this flight as an exercise to check out the new procedures and a new spacecraft, a spacecraft that had just incinerated three of his good friends (Grissom was one of the Mercury Seven and his next door neighbour). As far as he was concerned entertaining television was an unwelcome distraction from the business of a test pilot’s duties evaluating a new, untried spacecraft, but had to relent when the heavy guns were brought in to force the issue. Chris Kraft insisted that the American public should get the opportunity to see the action through live video broadcasts.

When Schirra woke from a sleep on Saturday morning in the spacecraft he heard Eisele arguing with Houston about a television transmission the ground wanted later in the day. Remembering he had not checked the system out he decided not to support it. Houston was aghast – astronauts don’t go against orders from Mission Control. The boss of the astronauts, Deke Slayton admitted, “There was nothing I could say or do to get Wally to change his mind.” He had tried.

Slayton: “Apollo 7, this is Capcom Number One.”

Schirra: “Roger.”

Slayton: “All we have agreed to do on this is flip it. Apollo 7, all we have agreed to do on this particular pass is to flip, flip the switch on. No other activity associated with the TV. I think we are still obliged to do that.”

Schirra snapped back: “We do not have the equipment out, we have not had an opportunity to follow setting, we have not eaten at this point, I still have a cold, and I refuse to foul up our timelines this way.”

This was mutiny, and from this point the mission became an uncomfortable confrontation between the flight controllers on the ground and the spacecraft crew, Eisele and Cunningham throwing their lot behind their skipper. Cunningham felt that Schirra was justified in the television case.

Eventually, from 0045 AEST 15 October, the first “Wally, Walt and Donn Show” was aired, repeated each USA morning as the spacecraft passed over the Corpus Christi and Cape Kennedy tracking stations, the only two stations equipped to pass on the live transmissions.

 

Donn Eisele (left) and Wally Schirra on nationwide television on 14 October. (“Keep those cards and letters coming in” is a quote from Dean Martin’s weekly television programme.) Image: NASA Photo ID: S68-50713, courtesy Dick Nafzger.

 

Funnily enough the mission rules laid down by the hierarchy had thought of every conceivable emergency except dealing with disobedient astronauts!

Cunningham,

Schirra found the much bigger, sluggish Apollo Command Module a very different proposition to the more ‘sporty’ Gemini spacecraft. The crew practiced a rendezvous with the Saturn IVB but without the rendezvous radar to provide the range and approach velocity they had an anxious time judging the braking and distance away to begin station keeping alongside the Saturn IVB at 0658 AEST 13 October, so kept a safe 30 metres away from the tumbling rocket for the 25 minute exercise.

When the crew did turn the television equipment on Schirra was all charm and the Wally, Walt and Donn shows broadcast live over the American networks were so popular they won a special Emmy award. It was a new experience for Earthlings to see astronauts tumbling around weightless, even if it was on a screen.

 

Donn Eisele (left) and Walt Cunningham during the third TV broadcast. Scan: Colin Mackellar. Image courtesy Bruce Withey. (Other SS-TV images here.)

Cunningham,

By day four the astronauts were already finding the endless orbits around the Earth were becoming monotonous. Schirra commented, “We were on day four when I realised that 10.8 days is an eternity.” The endless sunrises and sunsets each 90 minutes became boring. With no books to read or tapes to play to pass the time they made up simple games such as trying to throw a pencil through a ring made by a thumb and forefinger. As the pencil always began to tumble they never succeeded.

When getting dressed one day Schirra noted that men on the Earth pull their trousers on one leg at time, but he found with weightlessness he was able to pull both legs on simultaneously.

During day 8 Houston had instructed them to track a planet down to the horizon. Their telescope was combined with a computer and sextant. Unfortunately when the computer went into the ‘tilt’ mode it would lock up. Following this exercise the computer went into the tilt mode and locked up. “What idiot sent that command,” growled Eisele. Without the computer they were effectively shut down, no more manoeuvres in orbit, no guided reentry and all the work they had done was invalidated. “Hey, remember the night we were trying to look at the nurses?” Eisele called out. Luckily he had come across this problem when they were trying the equipment at the MIT lab and were observing some nurses across the way for fun and a passing instructor told him to press clear and add together to clear the problem. Eisele tried and it worked.

 

Walt Cunningham during the mission. From an ApolloArchive.com scan processed by Ed Hengeveld. See also this picture taken near the end of the mission, on Day 9.

Cunningham,

In the crew wake-up on his final shift of the mission, as a joke to stir the crew, Flight Director Gerry Griffin threatened to keep Apollo 7 aloft for another four days, to beat the Gemini VII record of fourteen days, but was howled down.

 

During Rev 91 on 17 October 1968 coasting along in the calm of space Apollo 7 passed over Hurricane Gladys trashing the Gulf of Mexico. NASA image AS07-07-1877

 

Several days before the mission ended, they began to worry about wearing their suit helmets during reentry, which would prevent them from blowing their noses. It was feared the build-up of pressure to the Earth’s atmosphere might burst their eardrums, so they were told to hold their noses, close their mouths and try to blow through their Eustachian tubes to keep the pressure in the middle ear in balance with the increasing air pressure. To do this Schirra told his crew that they would make the reentry without their helmets on. Slayton, in mission control, tried to persuade them to wear the helmets to follow mission rules, but Schirra would not give in as he felt he was ultimately responsible as commander on the flight.

They each took a decongestant pill about an hour before reentry and made it through the acceleration zone without any problems with their ears.

During Rev 134 they came upon the morning sun blazing down on a more peaceful Gulf of Mexico on 20 October 1968 after Hurricane Gladys had moved on. From an ApolloArchive.com scan processed by Ed Hengeveld.

 

An 11.9 second de-orbit burn over Hawaii during the 163rd orbit at 2042 AEST on 22 October was followed by splashdown at 2111:48, 370 kilometres south east of the island of Bermuda. Light rain showers were passing by, with a 16 knot westerly breeze raising a one metre chop.

The temperature was a comfortable 23°C. The mission took 260 hours 9 minutes 3 seconds (or 10 days 20 hours 4 minutes) to travel a distance of 7,322,515 kilometres.

The Apollo flotation bags had their first try-out when the spacecraft splashed down less than 2 kilometres from the carrier Essex and promptly flipped upside down in the choppy sea. As soon as the bags righted the spacecraft the helicopters were able to home in on the beacon signals.

 

Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walt Cunningham onboard the USS Essex.

I have spoken to both Chris Kraft and Gene Kranz, neither of whom ever spoke to Schirra about his behaviour during the flight, and both are not sure why he carried on the way he did. Chris Kraft’s comments to me were,

“Schirra was recalcitrant – the whole crew was recalcitrant as a result, and I imagine there was some justification for that on the basis of what happened on the pad when we killed three people. As fliers they performed the flight well – they just gave us a hard time on the ground.”

Gene Kranz answered my question with,

“This mission was a spectacularly successful test of the manned maiden voyage of the Apollo Command and Service Module. However, learning to work with Wally in flight – well, in my book I called him the ‘grumpy commander.’ Unfortunately, he got this cold in flight, and space is not too tolerant to people who end up with a lot of congestion. It’s very difficult to sleep and continue working – I guess he had his hands full. I never quite figured out why Wally had such a burr under his saddle there.”

I could never get hold of Schirra himself, but I think I have explained the reason for his behaviour from the printed material available. Thanks to Schirra’s behaviour, neither Eisele or Cunningham ever flew in space again. However, in his book “Flight,” Chris Kraft did admit he would have given Cunningham another chance, however Walt resigned before that could happen.

All the mission objectives were met and all the spacecraft systems worked satisfactorily. The fuel cells providing electricity also supplied hot water at 68°C for Schirra’s coffee. For the first time a live television program was broadcast around the commercial networks from space. Apollo Program Director Sam Phillips announced, “We achieved 101% of our objectives.”

With a successful flight the Apollo Project was ready to go. President Kennedy’s deadline of 1969 for a Moon landing now seemed within reach.

 

This photo of the crew was sent to Honeysuckle Creek by Walt Cunningham. In part, it reads, “Thanks for your great support.” The picture was spied on the wall at Honeysuckle – in some news film taken on July 21, 1969, the day of the Apollo 11 landing (Australian time).

This certificate was presented to members of the Manned Space Flight Network – signed by H. William Wood, Network Director, and Mike Stevens, Network Operations Manager. This copy was received by Honeysuckle’s Bernard Smith.

 

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