Apollo 7
October 22, 1968
Eleven days in orbit. All systems tested. Three men home safe. Schirra had a head cold the whole time, which made him even more cantankerous than usual with Mission Control. But more importantly: they broadcast live television from space for the first time. The picture was shaky. The men were…
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October 11, 1968
Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham are in space right now. The first crewed Apollo mission launched this morning and it looks good.
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Apollo 7
October 11, 1968
Apollo 7 launched this morning. For the first time since the fire twenty-one months ago, American astronauts are in space. Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walt Cunningham rode a Saturn IB into orbit and the spacecraft worked. I watched from home. I was not entirely certain, until I saw the…
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Space Race
September 21, 1968
Zond 5 splashed down in the Indian Ocean yesterday, returning from a flyby of the Moon. The turtles aboard survived. The competition just got very real.
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Space Race
September 14, 1968
I wrote briefly about Zond 5 before it launched. Now it's back, and I want to think more carefully about what it means for the race.
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Space Race
August 15, 1968
Zond 5 launched last week on what looks very much like a crewed lunar mission rehearsal. Are the Soviets about to put cosmonauts around the Moon before we get there?
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July 4, 1968
July Fourth, 1968. The year is half over. We've survived Tet, we've survived King, we've survived Kennedy. And the space program is still going.
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June 6, 1968
Robert Kennedy was shot two nights ago and died yesterday morning. I can't stop thinking about the phone call to Jackie Kennedy they must have made.
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Apollo 1
June 1, 1968
Eighteen months since the fire. The spacecraft has been redesigned — new quick-opening hatch, new materials, 1,341 engineering changes. The Saturn V has been tested twice. Apollo 7 will carry men for the first time in a few months. I find myself thinking about Grissom again. I think he would…
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April 5, 1968
Martin Luther King was shot and killed in Memphis yesterday. I don't have words for this.
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