Аполлон-7: Ғарышқа алғашқы ұшқан экипаж

First crewed flight of the Apollo space program

Apollo 7 (October 11–22, 1968) was the first crewed flight in NASA's Apollo program, and saw the resumption of human spaceflight by the agency after the fire that had killed the three Apollo 1 astronauts during a launch rehearsal test on January 27, 1967. The Apollo7 crew was commanded by Walter M. Schirra, with command module pilot Donn F. Eisele and lunar module pilot R. Walter Cunningham (so designated even though Apollo7 did not carry a Lunar Module). The three astronauts were originally designated for the second crewed Apollo flight, and then as backups for Apollo1. After the Apollo1 fire, crewed flights were suspended while the cause of the accident was investigated and improvements made to the spacecraft and safety procedures, and uncrewed test flights made. Determined to prevent a repetition of the fire, the crew spent long periods monitoring the construction of their Apollo command and service modules (CSM). Training continued over much of the pause that followed the Apollo1 disaster. Apollo 7 was launched on October 11, 1968, from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station, Florida, and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean eleven days later. Extensive testing of the CSM took place, and also the first live television broadcast from an American spacecraft. Despite tension between the crew and ground controllers, the mission was a complete technical success, giving NASA the confidence to send Apollo 8 into orbit around the Moon two months later. In part because of these tensions, none of the crew flew in space again, though Schirra had already announced he would retire from NASA after the flight. Apollo7 fulfilled Apollo1's mission of testing the CSM in low Earth orbit, and was a significant step towards NASA's goal of landing astronauts on the Moon.

Schirra, one of the original "Mercury Seven" astronauts, graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1945. He flew Mercury Atlas 8 in 1962, the fifth crewed flight of Project Mercury and the third to reach orbit, and in 1965 was the command pilot for Gemini 6A. He was a 45 year old captain in the Navy at the time of Apollo7. Eisele graduated from the Naval Academy in 1952 with a B. S. in aeronautics. He elected to be commissioned in the Air Force, and was a 38 year old major at the time of Apollo7. Cunningham joined the U. S. Navy in 1951, began flight training the following year, and served in a Marine flight squadron from 1953 to 1956, and was a civilian, aged 36, serving in the Marine Corps reserves with a rank of major, at the time of Apollo7. He received degrees in physics from UCLA, a B. A. in 1960 and an M. A. in 1961. Both Eisele and Cunningham were selected as part of the third group of astronauts in 1963. Eisele was originally slotted for a position on Gus Grissom's Apollo 1 crew along with Ed White, but days prior to the official announcement on March 25, 1966, Eisele sustained a shoulder injury that would require surgery. Instead, Roger Chaffee was given the position and Eisele was reassigned to Schirra's crew. Schirra, Eisele, and Cunningham were first named as an Apollo crew on September 29, 1966. They were to fly a second Earth orbital test of the Apollo Command Module (CM). Although delighted as a rookie to be assigned to a prime crew without having served as a backup, Cunningham was troubled by the fact that a second Earth orbital test flight, dubbed Apollo2, seemed unnecessary if Apollo1 was successful. He learned later that Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton, another of the Mercury Seven who had been grounded for medical reasons and supervised the astronauts, planned, with Schirra's support, to command the mission if he gained medical clearance. When this was not forthcoming, Schirra remained in command of the crew, and in November 1966, Apollo2 was cancelled and Schirra's crew assigned as backup to Grissom's. Thomas P. Stafford—assigned at that point as the backup commander of the second orbital test—stated that the cancellation followed Schirra and his crew submitting a list of demands to NASA management (Schirra wanted the mission to include a lunar module and a CM capable of docking with it), and that the assignment as backups left Schirra complaining that Slayton and Chief Astronaut Alan Shepard had destroyed his career. On January 27, 1967, Grissom's crew was conducting a launch pad test for their planned February 21 mission, when a fire broke out in the cabin, killing all three men. A complete safety review of the Apollo program followed. Soon after the fire, Slayton asked Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham to fly the first mission after the pause. Apollo 7 would use the BlockII spacecraft designed for the lunar missions, as opposed to the Block I CSM used for Apollo 1, which was intended only to be used for the early Earth orbit missions, as it lacked the capability of docking with a lunar module. The CM and astronauts' spacesuits had been extensively redesigned, to reduce any chance of a repeat of the accident which killed the first crew. Schirra's crew would test the life support, propulsion, guidance and control systems during this "open ended" mission (meaning it would be extended as it passed each test). The duration was limited to 11 days, reduced from the original 14 day limit for Apollo1. The backup crew consisted of Stafford as commander, John W. Young as command module pilot, and Eugene A. Cernan as lunar module pilot. They became the prime crew of Apollo 10. Ronald E. Evans, John L. 'Jack' Swigert, and Edward G. Givens were assigned to the support crew for the mission. Givens died in a car accident on June 6, 1967, and William R. Pogue was assigned as his replacement. Evans was involved in hardware testing at Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Swigert was the launch capsule communicator (CAPCOM) and worked on the mission's operational aspects. Pogue spent time modifying procedures. The support crew also filled in when the primary and backup crews were unavailable. CAPCOMs, the person in Mission Control responsible for communicating with the spacecraft (then always an astronaut) were Evans, Pogue, Stafford, Swigert, Young and Cernan. Flight directors were Glynn Lunney, Gene Kranz and Gerry Griffin.

According to Cunningham, Schirra originally had limited interest in making a third spaceflight, beginning to focus on his post NASA career. Flying the first mission after the fire changed things: "Wally Schirra was being pictured as the man chosen to rescue the manned space program. And that was a task worthy of Wally's interest." Eisele noted, "coming on the heels of the fire, we knew the fate and future of the entire manned space program—not to mention our own skins—was riding on the success or failure of Apollo7." Given the circumstances of the fire, the crew initially had little confidence in the staff at North American Aviation's plant at Downey, California, who built the Apollo command modules, and they were determined to follow their craft every step of the way through construction and testing. This interfered with training, but the simulators of the CM were not yet ready, and they knew it would be a long time until they launched. They spent long periods at Downey. Simulators were constructed at Houston's Manned Spacecraft Center and at KSC in Florida. Once these were available for use, the crew had difficulty finding enough time to do everything, even with the help of the backup and support crews; the crew often worked 12 or 14 hours per day. After the CM was completed and shipped to KSC, the focus of the crew's training shifted to Florida, though they went to Houston for planning and technical meetings. Rather than return to their Houston homes for the weekend, they often had to remain at KSC in order to participate in training or spacecraft testing. According to former astronaut Tom Jones in a 2018 article, Schirra, "with indisputable evidence of the risks his crew would be taking, now had immense leverage with management at NASA and North American, and he used it. In conference rooms or on the spacecraft assembly line, Schirra got his way.") around the Moon, seeming to foreshadow a circumlunar crewed mission. NASA's Lunar Module (LM) was suffering delays, and Apollo Program Spacecraft Manager George Low proposed that if Apollo7 was a success, that Apollo 8 go to lunar orbit without a LM. The acceptance of Low's proposal raised the stakes for Apollo7. However, the spacecraft contractor had changed from McDonnell (Mercury and Gemini) to North American (Apollo), so Wendt was not the pad leader for Apollo1. So adamant was Schirra in his desire to have Wendt back as pad leader for his Apollo flight, that he got his boss Slayton to persuade North American management to hire Wendt away from McDonnell, and Schirra personally lobbied North American's launch operations manager to change Wendt's shift from midnight to day so he could be pad leader for Apollo7. Wendt remained as pad leader for the entire Apollo program.

The Apollo 7 spacecraft included Command and Service Module 101 (CSM 101) the first BlockII CSM to be flown. The BlockII craft had the capability of docking with a LM, though none was flown on Apollo7. The spacecraft also included the launch escape system and a spacecraft lunar module adapter (SLA, numbered as SLA 5), though the latter included no LM and instead provided a mating structure between the SM and the S IVB's Instrument Unit, with a structural stiffener substituted for the LM. The launch escape system was jettisoned after S IVB ignition, while the SLA was left behind on the spent S IVB when the CSM separated from it in orbit. Following the Apollo 1 fire, the BlockII CSM was extensively redesigned—more than 1,800 changes were recommended, of which 1,300 were implemented for Apollo7. That Saturn IB was designated SA 205, and was the fifth Saturn IB to be flown—the earlier ones did not carry crews into space. It differed from its predecessors in that stronger propellant lines to the augmented spark igniter in the J 2 engines had been installed, so as to prevent a repetition of the early shutdown that had occurred on the uncrewed Apollo 6 flight; postflight analysis had shown that the propellant lines to the J 2 engines, also used in the Saturn V tested on Apollo6, had leaked. The Saturn IB was a two stage rocket, with the second stage an S IVB similar to the third stage of the Saturn V, the rocket used by all later Apollo missions. Apollo 7 was the only crewed Apollo mission to launch from Cape Kennedy Air Force Station's Launch Complex 34. All subsequent Apollo and Skylab spacecraft flights (including Apollo–Soyuz) were launched from Launch Complex 39 at the nearby Kennedy Space Center. During the countdown, the wind was blowing in from the east. Launching under these weather conditions was in violation of safety rules, since in the event of a launch vehicle malfunction and abort, the CM might be blown back over land instead of making the usual water landing. Apollo7 was equipped with the old Apollo1 style crew couches, which provided less protection than later ones. Schirra later related that he felt the launch should have been scrubbed, but managers waived the rule and he yielded under pressure. Liftoff proceeded flawlessly; the Saturn IB performed well on its first crewed launch and there were no significant anomalies during the boost phase. The astronauts described it as very smooth. The ascent made the 45 year old Schirra the oldest person to that point to enter space, Schirra had brought instant coffee along over the opposition of NASA doctors, who argued it added nothing nutritionally. Five hours after launch, he reported having, and enjoying, his first plastic bag full of coffee. The purpose of the rendezvous was to demonstrate the CSM's ability to match orbits with and rescue a LM after an aborted lunar landing attempt, or following liftoff from the lunar surface. This was to occur on the second day; but by the end of the first, Schirra had reported he had a cold, and, despite Slayton coming on the loop to argue in favor, declined Mission Control's request that the crew power up and test the onboard television camera prior to the rendezvous, citing the cold, that the crew had not eaten, and that there was already a very full schedule. This was the first live television broadcast from an American spacecraft (Gordon Cooper had transmitted slow scan television pictures from Faith7 in 1963, but the pictures were of poor quality and were never broadcast). According to Jones, "these apparently amiable astronauts delivered to NASA a solid public relations coup." Later on October 14, the craft's onboard radar receiver was able to lock onto a ground based transmitter, again showing a CSM in lunar orbit could keep contact with a LM returning from the Moon's surface. Johnson also invited the crew to the White House, and they went there in December 1968. John T. McQuiston wrote in The New York Times after Eisele's death in 1987 that Apollo7's success brought renewed confidence to NASA's space program. The patch was designed by Allen Stevens of Rockwell International.

In January 1969, the Apollo7 command module was displayed on a NASA float in the inauguration parade of President Richard M. Nixon, as were the Apollo7 astronauts. After being transferred to the Smithsonian Institution in 1970, the spacecraft was loaned to the National Museum of Science and Technology, in Ottawa, Ontario. It was returned to the United States in 2004. Currently, the Apollo7 CM is on loan to the Frontiers of Flight Museum at Love Field in Dallas, Texas.

On November 6, 1968, comedian Bob Hope broadcast one of his variety television specials from NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston to honor the Apollo7 crew. Barbara Eden, star of the popular comedy series I Dream of Jeannie, which featured fictional astronauts among its regular characters, appeared with Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham. Schirra parlayed the head cold he contracted during Apollo7 into a television advertising contract as a spokesman for Actifed, an over the counter version of the medicine he took in space. The Apollo 7 mission is dramatized in the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon episode "We Have Cleared the Tower", with Mark Harmon as Schirra, John Mese as Eisele, Fredric Lehne as Cunningham and Nick Searcy as Slayton.