-CDR Wally Schirra to CAPCOMs Jack Swigert and Deke Slayton, 23 hours into Apollo 7's 11-day mission
"It was like having a ringside seat at the Wally Schirra B[****] Circus. [...] I told Deke [Slayton] straight out that this crew shouldn't fly again."
-Director of Flight Operations Chris Kraft, in his 2001 memoir Flight: My Life in Mission Control
"I hope that the recognition you received today will restore some of your faith in your fellow travelers. We gave you a hard time once but you certainly survived that and have done extremely well since. You've done well by yourself, you've done well for NASA and I am frankly, very proud to call you a friend."
-Chris Kraft to Walter Cunningham, 2008
The CAPCOM, or capsule communicator, has an important job at Mission Control - he's the only one who talks to the crew. He is also, by tradition, an astronaut, even if he hasn't yet flown into space. Jack Swigert was very, very low on the astronaut totem pole. He had applied for the second and third groups of astronauts, but was rejected both times. He was finally accepted as part of the fifth group in 1966 (the fourth group was comprised entirely of scientists, so Swigert didn't even qualify to apply) and, unusually for someone competing for a seat on an Apollo mission, deliberately specialized in the CM and requested to be assigned as CMP - Command Module Pilot, meaning he'd stay in lunar orbit and never set foot on the Moon.
In contrast, of course, Wally Schirra was a veteran astronaut. It's not really surprising that he'd talk back to Swigert. Slayton, however, was a different story. Slayton was the Chief Astronaut (despite having never flown in space). When Slayton gets on the line, things are serious (a fact played well if somewhat understated in Apollo 13).
But Schirra was unrelenting. The cold that he complained of wouldn't have been a big deal on Earth, where the gravity would drain the excess mucus out of his sinuses naturally. Not so in space.
Moreover, Schirra felt that NASA was more concerned with secondary objectives, like a planned television broadcast:
"The day they requested us to play games with the television, I was trying to do a rendezvous with the booster. I didn't want to mix that up with something else that was not important. They wanted the television on on a particular day, and it wasn't scheduled for that day. I said we'll put it on tomorrow. That made sense to me — but not to them."
-Schirra in 2002
The "booster" he's talking about is the Saturn IVB, the rocket's uppermost stage. Subsequent flights would have the LM, whose thin shell was not designed to survive the atmospheric battering of launch, safely concealed inside. It was important, therefore, to make sure that the Apollo CSM could separate from the Saturn, turn around, and return to it in order to pluck the LM out. (On most Moon missions, the upper stage would be lit again after LM retrieval in order to set it on a collision course with the Moon.)
Rendezvous in this case involved firing the SPS - the Service Propulsion System, the Service Module's engine - twice. This was one of the most critical parts of Apollo 7's mission. If there were problems with the SPS, Apollo 8 would not be going to the Moon; there simply was not another Apollo component with the 21,000 pounds of thrust necessary to shove the CSM into and out of lunar orbit.
Once Apollo 7's orbit had been adjusted by the two SPS firings, further minute corrections would be made with the spacecraft's Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters. These also had to function as intended, less so for Apollo 8 than for Apollos 9 onwards - this fine-tune guidance system would be used to dock the CSM with the LM twice on every mission.
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| Apollo CSM diagram (click to enlarge). One of the RCS thruster blocks is labelled 12. |
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| The Saturn booster, photographed from Apollo 7. Note only three panels are deployed. |
With rendezvous squared away by the end of the second day, the crew turned their attention to other tasks. They tested the spacecraft's cooling system and rendezvous radar. By this point, Schirra's cold had spread to his two crewmates, but overall their attitudes were improving. In addition to colds, the crew also had to contend with stomach cramps they got from sleeping in the fetal position in zero-g. (Apollo was the first spacecraft where the crew didn't have to sleep in their seats.) Fortunately, they had a stretching device called the Exer-genie aboard, which helped relax their cramped muscles.
By the 72-hour mark, most of Apollo 7's objectives had been met. The SPS was fired for a third time to lower the orbit in case an emergency abort had to be made. The crew also got around to making the broadcast that had irked Schirra on the first day. They would make several more over the course of the mission, and would in fact receive an Emmy Award in 1969.
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| Eisle and Schirra appear on screen in the first live television broadcast from space. |
"By the midpoint of the mission, I realized how lucky I was to be working the night shift. [...] None of the mission rules discussed dealing with a grumpy commander."
-Gene Kranz, Failure is Not an Option
Starting on the sixth day, the crew would receive daily permission to continue the flight to its 11-day maximum. With most of their objectives complete, the crew began discussing reentry. Specifically, all three wanted to change the mission rule requiring them to wear their helmets. Still suffering colds, they wanted to be able to clear their sinuses in the rapidly-increasing atmospheric pressure. This did not go over well with ground control, and would be a source of tension for the last five days of the flight.
The crew also tested the manual navigation system, an incredibly low-tech way for an Apollo crew to determine where they were in space. All Apollo astronauts had memorized the positions of 37 stars and knew how to use a telescope and sextant. Although the crew reported some visibility problems due to occasional condensation on the windows, this test was, like all the others, overall successful.
On day seven, the crew performed their longest SPS burn, which lasted 66 seconds and raised the apogee of their orbit from 181 miles to 280. It was all, literally, downhill from there.
"Refer to the crew voice transcript; I can't stand to write it."
-mission log of Flight Director Glynn Lunney
"The control team cheered when Lunney later received a medal for the mission from President Johnson at LBJ Ranch. His performance went well above and beyond the call of duty."
-Gene Kranz, Failure is Not an Option
As the end of their mission approached, all three astronauts became increasingly testy with mission control. Every tiny modification to the flight plan was bound to provoke an explosion:
"I have had it up to here and, from now on, I am going to be an onboard flight director for these updates. We are not going to accept any new games like adding fifty feet to the velocity for a maneuver, or doing some crazy test we never heard of before. [...] And I suggest that when something like this comes up again, that you take it over [to] the simulator, run it through, if it wrings out, we may try it for you."
-Schirra, day 9
"I want to talk to the man or whoever it was that thought up that little gem."
-Donn Eisle, day 9
Finally, there was nothing left to do but re-entry. Slayton got on the air-to-ground loop in one last attempt to get the crew to wear their helmets for reentry, but Schirra was having none of it; the new Apollo helmets did not have the retractable visor the Mercury and Gemini helmets had had, meaning they would be unable to pop their ears if they had their helmets on.
CAPCOM [Slayton]: Okay. I think you ought to clearly understand that there is absolutely no experience at all with landing without the helmet on.
CDR [Schirra]: And there is no experience with the helmet either on that one.
CAPCOM: That one we've got a lot of experience with, yes.
CDR: If we had an open visor, I might go along with that.
CAPCOM: Okay. I guess you better be prepared to discuss in some detail when we land why we haven't got them on. I think you're too late now to do much about it.
CDR: That's affirmative. I don't think anybody down there has worn the helmets as much as we have.
CAPCOM: Yes.
CDR: We tried them on this morning.
CAPCOM: Understand that. The only thing we're concerned about is the landing. We couldn't care less about the reentry. But it's your neck, and I hope you don't break it.
CDR: Thank you, babe.
CAPCOM: Over and out.
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| Schirra, Eisle, and Cunningham after recovery |
Still, for paving the way for future Apollo missions, the crew were awarded NASA's Exceptional Service Medal, its second-highest honor. (Every other Apollo crew would be awarded the highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, after their missions. Schirra already had two of those from his previous flights.)
Walter Cunningham got a business degree and became a public speaker and private investor. In 2018, he joined the Back to Space organization, the brainchild of Apollo 14 astronaut Stu Roosa's granddaughter, designed to inspire and educate the next generation about space travel, specifically potential Mars missions. He is, as of this writing, still alive.
Donn Eisle held down a hodgepodge of jobs, including a stint in the Peace Corps. He divorced his first wife in 1969 and married his second shortly afterwards. The Eisles' split tore apart the Astronaut Wives Club, who, in addition to having to confront the truth that their husbands were fooling around, could not agree on whether to invite Eisle's new wife to their gatherings. (Times change: a few months after the Eisles divorced, designated Apollo 15 CMP Al Worden divorced without losing his place in line. Apollo 16 commander John Young followed suit a few years later.)
In 1987, Eisle went to Japan to attend the opening of a space camp in Tokyo, modeled after the one in Huntsville, Alabama. It was there that he died of a heart attack, aged 57. He was the fifth Apollo astronaut to die, following the Apollo 1 crew in 1967 and Jack Swigert in 1982. His ashes are interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
After leaving NASA, Wally Schirra co-anchored coverage of the Apollo missions with Walter Cronkite (you can see stock footage of the real Schirra in the film Apollo 13, seated next to Cronkite while the latter is discussing the CO2 problem). He also acted as a spokesman for Actifed, the medication he took on Apollo 7 for his head cold. Unlike many of his fellow astronauts, he never divorced.
"We have managed to hang in for 55 years, which isn't bad. My wife says our marriage has lasted so long because I was away half the time!"
-Wally Schirra, 2002
Schirra died of a heart attack in 2007; the fifth of the Mercury Seven to fly was also the fifth to die. (He was the twelfth Apollo astronaut to die, counting the Apollo 1 crew and Apollo/Soyuz astronaut Deke Slayton.) His ashes were scattered at sea.
"I wouldn't go [on the Space Shuttle] unless I could command it, and that would take two to three years of training. I wouldn't want to spend that much time. I wouldn't do what [John] Glenn did. I already have more flight time than Glenn has even now! When they asked me if I was jealous of John's shuttle flight, I said 'No, I'm not that old! I don't need the flight time, I have 300 hours in space; he had five! I too would have done anything to get out of the US Senate!' I used to do that to Shepard too, kidding him that it took me longer to get down on each of my three flights than he was up there on his first one. We had so much fun teasing. I miss him so much;* we teased all the time."
-Wally Schirra, 2002
*Alan Shepard died in 1998.
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| Walt Cunningham and the Apollo 7 CM, October 2008 |
"With their extraordinary achievements four decades ago, Walt and his crewmates earned our respect, our gratitude and our recognition as American heroes. Today they remain a testament to our nation's pioneering spirit and the unlimited talents of our people."
-President George W. Bush, 2008
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