posted 01-18-2014 03:25 PM               

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Originally posted by moorouge:
The launch of '6' would have failed.

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posted 01-18-2014 03:27 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by moorouge:
The launch of '6' would have failed.

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posted 01-18-2014 03:41 PM               

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Originally posted by Jim Behling:
After the Agena launch, the Titan booster would have done the same shut down and the investigation would have uncovered the same two problems.

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Which raises another question. If the Titan had left the pad with the blocked fuel line, would the crew have had to use the ejector seats and would they have survived to fly again?

On edit - following the failure to launch in October, both spacecraft and launch vehicle were placed under guard in bonded storeage. It was assumed that validity of check-outs made in October remained valid when it came to making both ready for the December launch and the compressed preparation needed. Thus, it is highly likely that the plug in the fuel line was present in October.

posted 08-14-2014 09:43 AM               

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Originally posted by moorouge:
Thus, it is highly likely that the plug in the fuel line was present in October.

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If the Titan had left the pad with the blocked fuel line, would the crew have had to use the ejector seats and would they have survived to fly again?

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posted 08-15-2014 09:06 PM            

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Originally posted by Jim Behling:
Quite the opposite, it means it was very likely the blockage was present in October. The cover was on the vehicle the whole time and was never removed.

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So, what is the question, exactly — what would have happened had the plug not fallen out? Or, would the fuel line not have been blocked on it's original launch date?

I'm afraid I don't understand the premise of this thread. As I understand it, the problems that afflicted the launch on its postponed date would have also been an issue on its original launch date.

posted 08-20-2014 07:45 AM               

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Originally posted by calcheyup:
One thing I'd like to add, anyone wanting to know one of the biggest factors why Schirra had no patience for Mission Control on Apollo 7 needs to intimately acquaint themselves with this event, it's severity, and the disastrous repercussions it could have led to had a pilot of Schirra's caliber not been in that seat.

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I think the major reason Schirra acted the way he did on Apollo 7 was because he felt that he was in many ways superior to everyone else, especially Chris Kraft. I fully understand and agree with his concept that the captain runs the ship, but the things Mission Control were asking him to do were rather simple things that didn't interfere with the mission or cause any danger to the crew. The biggest problem I have with Schirra's behavior is that his refusal to do, or allow his crew to do, the few additional tasks that were asked of them increased the load on the subsequent crews and could have changed Apollo 8 to an earth orbital mission just to finish testing out the entire Apollo CSM system. To me, that's just not right. He acted very selfishly.

Yes, I'm sure that the Gemini 6 abort had something to do with the way he acted on Apollo 7, but he had such a great flight when Gemini 6 finally launched. It didn't seem to bother him then. Maybe he was more bothered by the fact that he'd trained for years to perform the first docking only to have his mission become a rendezvous mission. While cool, it's certainly not as cool as the first docking. Perhaps they could have flipped the crews around and moved the Gemini 6 crew down the line until NASA was ready to shoot for the first docking. It's the same thing they did with the Apollo 9 crew. That would have made more sense to me.

I think that of all the theories I've heard regarding his behavior on Apollo 7, the one that makes the most sense to me is he felt all along that he should have commanded the first Apollo mission. He fought for years to get that flight only to lose out to Grissom. I think the arguments he had during that time caused him to have a lot of bitterness towards Kraft, Slayton, and NASA management in general. By the time Apollo 7 finally flew, he could no longer contain his hostilities.

posted 08-20-2014 08:17 AM            

He was human and was addicted to nicotine. Nicotine withdrawal is documented as potentially greatly debilitating, manifesting itself to varying degrees and in varying ways depending on the individual. One of the most common symptoms is irritability.

Apollo 7 was Schirra's longest flight by far at almost 11 days. His previous flights were much shorter - MA-8 ~9 hours, GT-6A ~26 hours, too short for withdrawal symptoms to manifest themselves. Simple 'will power', fighter jock machismo, and military discipline cannot overcome the withdrawal effects of this drug.

posted 08-20-2014 08:39 AM               

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Originally posted by calcheyup:
I'm confused, you say it's "quite the opposite" and then agree with what he posted; that the blockage was in the fuel line during the original launch timeframe.

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posted 08-20-2014 05:13 PM               

The first brush with Mission Control came on the second day of the flight, hardly enough time for nicotine withdrawal to become a problem. Schirra cancelled the TV show because the crew had fallen behind the flight plan because of the addition of two extra burns of the RCS engines and an unscheduled urine dump.

The flight proceeded normally until day eight when Eisele's medical harness began to burn his skin. Attempts had been made to repair it several times and mindful of the spark that caused the Apollo 1 fire, Eisele refused to wear it anymore. Schirra backed him up.

Cunningham was next to object. He was asked to repeat an experiment forty times and told Mission Control that he had had his fill of 'Mickey Mouse' operations. It was Cunningham who caused another scheduled TV show to be postponed for one orbit saying that it was simply timed to fit in with somebody's terrestial TV schedule rather than the crew's work load.

I'll agree that it was Schirra who led the final disagreement with Mission Control prior to re-entry. His crew were suffering from head colds and had consumed 72 aspirin and used 330 paper tissues. The worry was that if made to wear their helmets they would be unable to clear the pressure build up in their ears. It's worth noting that he had a lot of quiet support in this from some officials in Houston. All the time this was going on, the crew were being overloaded with many more 'crazy tests'. Is it so wrong for a caring captain to tell those far removed from the action and not appreciating the stresses that he was going to put his crew first even if it did mean going against the flight plan?

The suggestion that this flight left tasks to be completed by following missions doesn't stand scrutiny. By the mid-point the crew had completed 24 of the 36 main objectives, 4 were partially complete and 6 had to wait until the re-entry phase of the flight.

posted 08-20-2014 05:55 PM               

I don't have a problem with the Apollo 7 crew objecting to requests by Mission Control, it was the attitude behind the complaints.

posted 08-21-2014 12:37 AM            

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Originally posted by schnappsicle:
First of all, I don't know if any astronaut would have pulled the D-ring during the Gemini 6 launch abort. From everything I've read, the ejection system was a total failure and a sure path to an early grave.

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I think the major reason Schirra acted the way he did on Apollo 7 was because he felt that he was in many ways superior to everyone else, especially Chris Kraft. I fully understand and agree with his concept that the captain runs the ship, but the things Mission Control were asking him to do were rather simple things that didn't interfere with the mission or cause any danger to the crew.

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quote:

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The biggest problem I have with Schirra's behavior is that his refusal to do, or allow his crew to do, the few additional tasks that were asked of them increased the load on the subsequent crews and could have changed Apollo 8 to an earth orbital mission just to finish testing out the entire Apollo CSM system. To me, that's just not right. He acted very selfishly.

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Yes, I'm sure that the Gemini 6 abort had something to do with the way he acted on Apollo 7, but he had such a great flight when Gemini 6 finally launched. It didn't seem to bother him then.

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My point is this: Schirra, knowing firsthand how hairy a possible abort could be, didn't want his Apollo vehicle to be launched under adverse wind conditions. This was an agreed upon mission rule that was violated immediately thanks largely to the same "go fever" that killed three of his friends. It's his crew's life up there. How anyone could not understand how this wouldn't immediately put him into a bad mood is beyond me. I think there are even some interviews where Schirra mentioned something along the lines of "they broke a major mission rule on the launch pad, so I wasn't worried about breaking their rules."

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I think that of all the theories I've heard regarding his behavior on Apollo 7, the one that makes the most sense to me is he felt all along that he should have commanded the first Apollo mission.

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To me, it's one of the saddest endings to a career I've ever seen. Schirra was my hero for what he did on his Mercury and Gemini flights, but I'll never understand why he tried to sabotage the space program on his final flight.

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posted 08-21-2014 05:32 AM               

I'm unaware that mission rules were 'bent' with regard to wind speed on Apollo 7. The launch was late by about three minutes but this was due to some extra chilling of the second stage.

The flight was to be open ended up to eleven days. Most of the objectives were achieved during the first three days of the mission. There is a suggestion that the Flight Directors decided to use the extra time to test the crew on additional pressures and to gain further information. If this was the case, then they picked on the wrong crew for such psychological exercises. Both Schirra and Cunningham were known to have short fuses when faced with officialdom at its blundering worst.

Perhaps another factor was that for the first few days of the flight the crew got very little sleep. They found that sleepiing in the couches led to them developing back and abdominal pains. It took three days before they managed to work out a routine that enabled them get enough sleep.

No wonder matters got a little fraught. Schirra had a new, unproven spacecraft to fly and a rookie crew. He knew also that he had to deliver the goods if a moon landing was to be met by Kennedy's target date. He had every justification for being a 'little short tempered'.

posted 08-21-2014 12:45 PM            

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Originally posted by moorouge:
I'm unaware that mission rules were 'bent' with regard to wind speed on Apollo 7.

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That was not the time to launch that day, and I didn't want to. Those were the wrong conditions, that violated mission rules. They broke the mission rule that we had established, that said we were not to launch under those conditions. We were not to launch if the wind was to blow us back over the beach, which would then force a land landing if we had to abort. That would essentially have been a death penalty. The winds on launch day were such that they would have blown us back over the beach. There was no problem about which day we launched. It was really a case of, someone wanted to go. I fought that, until I became rather difficult, and I finally yielded, with great concern. I conceded when we got to about T minus an hour and counting, when I realized that this could be a hard one to redo. But they were the ones who should have called the shutdown, not I.

"I said, okay, if you're going to be violating rules, guess what I'm going to be doing! We're going to judge these rules from now on. If you are going to break that rule and not give me a chance — then I am going to break some of the rules that you have given me problems with!"

posted 08-22-2014 02:07 AM               

On edit - I haven't yet unearthed the precise mission rule for launch criteria. However, I can report that the wind was from the east blowing at about 20 knots when Apollo 7 lifted-off. After lift-off the wind gradually backed until at 40,000 feet it was blowing from a westerly direction and was averaging about 25 fps. Perhaps it is this change that caused Mission Control to 'bend the rules' and allow the launch to proceed.