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 months after the fire, the proper changes had been made to Apollo and NASA, and the United States, were ready to prove we had our “shiny new moonship” as Deke Slayton put it, safe for the job ahead.
As this is the 48th anniversary, I don’t have too much special to say about this mission. What I think would be best here, for the sake of simplicity, would be to share the launch footage, as it was broadcast on CBS. The Saturn 1B was a beautiful machine, to be sure, and only flew 5 times with a crew – This mission, 3 manned flights to Skylab, and lastly, in 1975, the Apollo Soyuz Test Project. What had been a workhorse in getting Apollo ready for the Moon was only ever used once, with crew, for the actual primary Apollo program.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the launch of Apollo 7