On This Day In Space: Oct. 11, 1968: Apollo 7 Launches the 1st Apollo Crew into Orbit (Image Credit: Space.com)
On. Oct. 11, 1968, Apollo 7 launched into space with NASA astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham. This was the first mission of the Apollo program that carried a crew into space.
Apollo 7 rebooted the Apollo program after a fire killed three astronauts during a launch rehearsal 20 months earlier.
NASA needed to prove that their Apollo spacecraft worked with this mission, which was really more of a test flight. Though the spacecraft seemed to work alright, the crew got a little snippy during their 11 days in space. First, they suffered from motion sickness after launch, then Schirra came down with a cold, and the crew was constantly arguing with mission control and each other. None of the Apollo 7 astronauts went back to space after that.
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