While many of us are focused on the big 50th anniversary of the first moon landing coming up in July, there are a number of other Apollo 50th anniversaries that we have missed.
2/21/1967 Apollo 1 - This was originally just test mission AS-204 a non-launch test of the command module. With the loss of all three crew in the fire it was renamed Apollo 1, posthumously, at the request of the families. Lost in the fire were Gus Grissom (Mercury Astronaut), Ed White (Gemini Astronaut, first American to walk in space) and Roger B. Chaffee (Apollo Astronaut).
The test missions following Apollo 1 were renumber Apollo 2 - Apollo 6, all were unmanned.
10/11/1968 Apollo 7 - First manned test flight into Earth orbit. First live TV broadcast from an American spacecraft. Wally Schirra (Mercury Astronaut), Donn F. Eisele (Apollo Astronaut), Walter Cunningham (Apollo Astronaut).
12/21/1968 Apollo 8 - First circumlunar flight of the Command Space Module (CSM). Made ten lunar orbits. Frank Borman (Apollo Astronaut), James Lovell (Gemini Astronaut), and William Anders (Apollo Astronaut).
3/3/1969 Apollo 9 - First manned flight test of the Lunar Module (LM). James McDivitt (Gemini Astronaut), David Scott (Apollo Astronaut), and Rusty Schweickart (Apollo Astronaut).
Without these precursor events the first moon landing doesn't happen. The next important anniversary will be Apollo 10 in May.
Great stuff Kris! There was a really neat Kickstarter that reprinted the flight plan of Apollo 11, not sure if you saw that 🙂
ReplyDeleteI missed that one. I think I have one though. My uncle worked at NASA from the beginning of the program and I have all kinds of odd paraphernalia in various boxes.
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