The paralells between the American and Soviet space programs in 1967 to 1968 are quite strange. On January 27th 1967 America had the Apollo 1 Fire which resulted in the delay of the first manned flight of Apollo until October 1968 and the Apollo 7 Mission. The Soviet Union had a similarly bad situation with […]
On October 22nd, 1968 the Apollo 7 command module carrying Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, bringing an end to the first manned Apollo mission, and bringing confidence back to the nations space program, and our efforts to make it to the Moon before the end of […]
This is it. 50 years ago today on October 11th, 1968 the manned portion of the Apollo Program began with the launch of Apollo 7, a mission designed to test the newly redesigned Apollo Command / Service Module in Earth orbit with an actual crew for up to 2 weeks – the estimated length of […]
In keeping up with the recent anniversary of the launch of Apollo 6, I’m sharing this film from 1968 going over general operations at Kennedy Space Center, specifically in preparation for the Apollo 6 launch. It’s produced more like a proper film than many of the other NASA films from the 60’s I’ve shown here. […]
We have a quick one for you here today – a 1968 film in preparation for the mission of Apollo 6 covering the details on the planned mission. As mentioned before, Apollo 6 was intended to be basically a repeat of Apollo 4, the first test of the Saturn V rocket. That plan didn’t pan […]
Early in the morning of April 4th, 1968, on launch pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center, the second Saturn V rocket to fly was launched. This mission was Apollo 6 – another unmanned test of the Saturn V and the Apollo Command-Service module, much the same as the Apollo 4 mission in November of […]
On January 22nd, 1968 a Saturn 1B rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 37B carrying the first Apollo Lunar Module into orbit for its first in-space test flight. While Apollo 4 had tested the massive Saturn V, itself, of course, a critical machine in physically getting to the Moon, Apollo 5 […]
This film is a quick, 6 minute look at the navigation and guidance systems of the Apollo spacecraft. Something I noticed is that the film is dated to 1966, but uses footage from what is clearly the Apollo 6 mission, an unmanned Saturn V launch in April of 1968 – my best guess is this […]
Nuclear Rockets. They still sound futuristic even today. Interestingly enough, they were under active research in the late 50’s and early 60’s as part of the then-planned natural progression of both manned and unmanned space flight. Nuclear rocketry doesn’t operate the way the common man would normally think; it doesn’t ignite its fuel, but instead […]
48 Years ago today, Apollo 7 launched on the first manned flight of the Apollo Program, and the first manned flight on a Saturn 1B rocket. This mission, a planned 2 week stay in orbit testing the Apollo Command / Service Module system with a crew, was the mission originally planned for Apollo 1. 18 […]