Now the three men who had lost their friends on that ill-fated mission were faced with the task of flying an all-new space vehicle. It was to be the first manned flight of America's lunar spacecraft and it was to the be first manned launch of Wernher von Braun's giant Saturn IB rocket.
The prestigious task of commanding the first Apollo mission was given to CaptainWalter M. Schirra, a veteran of America's Gemini and Mercury programs. Accompanying him were Command Module Pilot, Major Donn Eisele, and physicist-civilian, Walter Cunningham ù both were taking their first ride into space.
Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham would be the first men to ride on a Saturn rocket and were then expected to fly the new spacecraft for the full length of a lunar mission. Every single onboard system would have to be tested and studied.
Apollo 7 would be the longest first flight of any spacecraft or aircraft in the history of aviation.
Incredibly, within nine months of this first manned Apollo mission, two Americans would fly the hardware to the Sea Of Tranquility.
This book includes the Apollo 7 Press kit, the Pre-launch Mission Operation Report, the Post-launch Mission Operation Report and the Crew Technical Debriefing.
A portion of the proceeds from this book go to The Watch an asteroid impact research project of the
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