Apollo 7 and Apollo 8

Following the tragic fire of Apollo 1, the Apollo missions began again in July 1967. Before the first manned flight of the Apollo spacecraft, a series of unmanned missions under the Apollo banner were launched:

• Apollo 2. Launched July 1967, the AS-203 was a test of the weightlessness of the fuel tank of the S-IVB, which would later be used to boost astronauts from the earth orbit and toward the moon. The fuel behaved exactly as the engineers wanted it to.
• Apollo 3. Also known as AS-202, and launched in August 1967. A test of the Command Module and Saturn IB booster. The engine for the Command Module was fired four times during flight and behaved as hoped.
• Apollo 4. The first flight of the Saturn V launch booster, which would later be used to launch the Apollo spacecraft from earth.
• Apollo 5. After serious delays, the first flight of the Lunar Module took place with the Apollo 5 mission in January 1968. This was an unmanned test of the LM, testing its engines in a space environment.
• Apollo 6. The final test of the Saturn V launch vehicle, though using the smaller Saturn IB rocket. It was a test of the command module and booster, and numerous flaws were found and subsequently resolved. It was the last unmanned test.

Time To Fly

The unmanned tests taught the engineers a lot about the spacecraft they had built, and on first impression it looked like the Lunar Module could cope with the demands of spaceflight. The go ahead was subsequently given for the first manned Apollo flight.

The crew of Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo flight: (L-R) Eisele, Schirra and Cunningham.

The crew for Apollo 7 were then named: Commander Walter Schirra, Command Module Pilot Donn Eisele and Lunar Module Pilot Walter Cunningham would be the first who could call themselves Apollo astronauts. The crew had served as back up crew on Apollo 1.

Apollo 7 was essentially a test of the Apollo spacecraft, this time with men on board to test the life support systems. It was an open ended flight, meaning that there was no firm end date, but rather the mission would end when consumables ran out. The mission was a vital confidence builder following Apollo 1, though is notable in that Commander Wally Schirra became the one man to have flown Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions – a record that would not be broken.

The Apollo 7 crew in their suits.

Apollo 7 and crew launched on October 11th 1968, and spent a total of 11 days in orbit. While in terms of engineering the flight was an almost complete success, spending so much time in space proved to be difficult for the astronauts.

Though much larger than the previous Mercury and Gemini spacecraft, Apollo 7 was still not comfortable. Oddly, the relatively larger living space created as many problems as it solved;  namely, motion sickness.

The astronauts also complained of the quality of the food, and Schirra developed a nasty cold during the mission which his crewmates subsequently caught, which lead to frayed tempers. All three astronauts, at some point in the mission, “chatted back” to mission control out of irritation; you can read the official transcript of the earth to spacecraft links here. The back chat caused NASA to determine that none of the crew would fly again, though physical discomfort played a large part in their disgruntled attitudes; colds are uncomfortable on earth, but in a zero gravity environment are all the worse.

In terms of engineering and the spacecraft, Apollo 7 was a complete success, as all mission objectives plus three unplanned objectives were accomplished.

Genesis – The Flight of Apollo 8

Apollo 8 was an odd flight, dictated purely by the events that were happening at Grumman Aircraft Industries Corporation. Grumman had been working on the lunar module since Kennedy had made his speech, but the process had been more difficult than anyone had expected. This is largely due to the fact that no one had ever tried to build a craft designed to land on the moon.

The Grumman delays became so bad, that eventually NASA had to make a difficult call: the Apollo 8 mission would go ahead, but it would go without the lunar module. The mission designed to be the first manned flight of the lunar module would be bumped back to Apollo 9, and would take its crew with it. The mission we now know as Apollo 8 was designed, where only the command module went to orbit the moon in December 1968. The lunar module would remain on the ground for further work; waiting for it to be ready would have meant NASA missed the “end of decade” target set by John F Kennedy.

Apollo 8 is sometimes referred to as something of a dummy mission, where the pilots had little to do but sit and watch. But what a view – Apollo 8 was going to bring three men a vision no human alive had ever seen.

The crew of Apollo 8: (L-R) Jim Lovell, Bill Anders and Frank Borman

The objective of Apollo 8 was simple: orbit the moon. As ever, a three man crew was selected:

• Frank Borman. Borman had previously flown with Jim Lovell on Gemini 7, and Apollo 8 was to be his second and final flight – due in no small part to the queasiness he suffered during the Apollo 8 mission. Borman also served on the review board of the Apollo 1 disaster. He was the Mission Commander for Apollo 8.
• Jim Lovell. Apollo 8 made Lovell the most travelled man of all time; it was his third flight, the most of any astronaut by that time. Lovell was originally on the back up crew for Apollo 8, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, so it is likely had Michael Collins not have to withdraw from the Apollo 8 prime crew with a back problem, Lovell would have been the command module pilot for Apollo 11 – and he never would have flown on the ill fated Apollo 13. It is amazing that Lovell has kept such a level head about the hand that fate dealt him. On Apollo 8, Lovell was the Command Module Pilot.
• Bill Anders. Anders was a rookie when it came to space flight, and Apollo 8 would be his first and only venture into space. He was the Lunar Module Pilot for the mission (despite no actual lunar module flying).

Apollo 8 reached lunar orbit on December 24th 1968. The crew became the first men in the history of the world to see the dark side of the moon with their own eyes. At the time, their broadcast from the far side of the moon was the most watched television programme in history. Their Christmas Eve message was fitting; the trio of astronauts read from the book of Genesis, as they focused their camera out of the window of their craft so the earth was visible.

The earth and moon, taken on Apollo 8 by Bill Anders. The television cameras showed a similar, though black and white, view.

Although they would later receive criticism for choosing a religious passage (from athiests), the live Christmas Eve reading of Apollo 8 is one of the most spine tingling moments of the entire Apollo programme. All three astronauts contributed:

Bill Anders began…

“We are now approaching lunar sunrise and, for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

Jim Lovell:

“And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.”

Frank Borman continued…

“And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”

Alternatively, thanks to the wonders of YouTube, you can now watch the broadcast for yourself:

If Apollo 7 was a confidence builder following the fire, Apollo 8 was the moment when everyone knew what NASA’s ultimate goal was. After all, men had just seen it for the first time with their own eyes: Apollo was headed for the moon.