Launch of Apollo 7 (CBS)

CBS coverage of the launch of Apollo 7 - October 11th 1968. Walter Cronkite reports for CBS.

[@dwmzmm]

The Apollo - 7/Saturn 1-B is one of the most beautiful looking launch vehicles ever.

[@michaelsmith2341]

the hot rod of Saturn boosters

[@garyqueen9854]

My dad was a propulsion engineer on the second stage (S4B) on this flight.

[@Unbreakify]

@@garyqueen9854 Crazy!

[@lorrydavs3361]

I agree- the all white paint-job of the later Skylab flights didn't look anywhere near as nice as the black-and-white first stage of 7 and of course the earlier IB tests, including Apollo 5/LM1.

[@dalethelander3781]

This never gets old.

[@738hickory]

Apollo - The greatest single accomplishment of mankind!

[@FigmentSALabel]

Organ transplants.

[@thomthumbe]

Jed Low - The Apollo program enabled dozens of health-care advances, including the advancement of computer technology which by itself has advanced all human health care in never-before-seen positive increments.....including transplant technology.

[@douglasbrock5965]

I would think agriculture....

[@331SVTCobra]

Led Zeppelin. Apollo is second.

[@warrenwhite9085]

The printing press… penicillin.. Wright brothers first flight.. photography.. electronics/computers.. the internet.. vaccines.. harnessing fire.. nuclear power/weapons..

[@cateclism316]

As kids we didn't realize how privileged we were to witness these flights, live on TV in our own time!

[@TimothyOBrien1958]

I did. I was glued.

[@danielliut1598]

@@TimothyOBrien1958 True, and was watching all these things from Argentina.

[@dks13827]

yes. we thought that things would be really big in 50 years.

[@Musicman81Indy]

When I was a kid back in the mid to late 70s my mom had an old reel to reel recorder. (For those of you who are too young to know what this is, google it). Anyway, one day I found a small reel of tape in a box, and since it wasn't labeled, I put it on the reel to reel to find out what it was. It was this exact broadcast of CBS's coverage of the launch of Apollo 7. I was already a space nerd in the 70s so I kept th tape and transferred it on to a cassette tape, and I listened to it over and over through the years. I was 5 years old when Apollo 7 flew, so i had been much too young to understand or enjoy it. But now, in the mid to late 70s, I was a space nerd, and I loved hearing that old launch from so many years ago.

[@pinedelgado4743]

That's a very interesting story!! I used to do stuff like that when I was younger. Because I didn't have access to video-recording capabilities when I was a boy, I'd use a audio cassette recorder to tape many different shows on TV. ;)

[@warrenwhite9085]

As a boy I watched Americans walk on the moon & dreamed of what more US manned space explorations I would see in my lifetime.. Then I watched Federal Agency NASA waste $500 billion & 50 years on dead wood Center/HQ overhead & unaffordable, unsustainable dead end pork manned space boondoggles like STS, ISS, Constellation, now SLS/Orion.. sadly watched frustrating decades of NASA irresponsible sloth, waste, incompetence. NASA manned space: ‘Going nowhere since 1972’. Now I’m finally seeing American private enterprise make giant strides to make space affordable, bring technology to bear, give us Lunar colonies, Americans on Mars, trips to asteroids.. NASA is indefensible. Do we really want OUR tax money to continue to be wasted on Federal Agency NASA dead wood overhead, shameless boondoggles like SLS? Far better to downsize or eliminate deadwood NASA & instead fund x-prizes for American private enterprises accomplishing US space goals.

[@Sacto1654]

This launch is unique in the fact it was the only manned flight launched from Complex 34. Because Complex 34 was dismantled afterwards, the Saturn 1B launches to Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz mission was launched from Complex 39B using a specially-modified "milkstool" structure on the Mobile Launcher Platform.

[@mikegallant811]

Sacto1654 wouldn't be surprised if LC34 is haunted because of the deaths of Gus and Ed and Roger.

[@samsignorelli]

It was also the only manned Sat 1B flight to not use the Milk Stool.

[@flybywire09]

Saw the Apollo 7 command module yesterday at the Frontiers of Flight museum in Dallas. Awesome stuff.

[@Tommyr]

Our GREATEST manned spaceflight era! And I was around to see it live on TV!

[@RGL01]

Me too!!

[@sst568]

Me three!

[@vincef.8261]

Me four!

[@poisonouzapple2467]

Me five!

[@classicmusicarchives7370]

Me Six !

[@PoliticalCineaste]

Launch was at 15:02:45 UTC, you can set your playback to your local timezone to figure out how to watch it live, as it happened, 55 years ago to the second.

[@billb9917]

Rip Colonel Walt Cunningham last surviving apollo7 crew member

[@a8avexp]

Exciting times. I was in the sixth grade when the Apollo 7, 8, 9 and 10 missions were carried out and remember them all.

[@lunarmodule5]

I am, as always envious of anyone who saw these events ! Thanks for your comments - appreciated

[@Woody615]

I was right behind you. I was in 4th grade for Apollo 7 - 11.

[@davidtagliaferri388]

Apollo 7 launched on my 4th birthday!

[@dangelo1369]

RIP Walter Cunningham (1932-2023)

[@billinct860]

This is the mission Apollo 1 would have attempted in early 1967 if not for the tragic fire. That set the program back over a year to upgrade future Apollo vehicles for safety as well as additional unmanned tests flights.

[@pinedelgado4743]

21 long months from the Apollo 1 fire to Apollo 7.

[@rwboa22]

Before the Apollo 1 fire, there was two unmanned Saturn IB launches carrying the (Block I) Apollo CSM. After the Apollo 1 fire, the next unmanned Apollo flight was Apollo 4 with the Saturn V, followed by the unmanned Apollo 5 (Saturn IB with a legless LM), followed by Apollo 6, again with a Saturn V. Yes, we did have additional unmanned flights, but none being a Saturn IB with an unmanned CSM.

[@Mairo4111]

America full of wonder and great Space age. No school shootings, no corruption on TV but a war in Vietnam and crisis in the streets of protesters. Music was cool and so was the times to success. Some college education was free as in California. What an era!

[@RichardCook-on3gf]

The success of Apollo 7 proved the redesigned spacecraft would work.

[@ronaldtartaglia4459]

It blows me away that the countdown timer counts back from 99 on the seconds... it's an example of how technology was back then.

[@Shadowkey392]

Pretty cool that the quality is good enough to see the freaking escape tower getting jettisoned.

[@altfactor]

Wally Schirra was Walter Cronkite's closest friend among the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo era astronauts. After Schirra retired from the astronaut program, he assisted Cronkite on-air on CBS space coverage (in fact, I thought he was loaned by NASA to CBS to work on-air with Cronkite during a couple of Gemini flights in 1966).

[@nguyendailam6703]

I loved Schirra ever since his exploits on Gemini VI

[@karapalin]

Imagine if they had HD digital camera footage and cockpit cams in those days.

[@NUCLEARARMAMENT]

They had HD cameras back then, it's just the recorded footage looks awful due to degradation of the transmissions/broadcasts and the really bad quality of old videotape recorders. An old 2" portable Quadruplex VTR (e.g. VR-3000, VR-3000B) could have recorded super high-band color to tape, or the equivalent of 60 Mbps of digital data.

[@MrRandomcommentguy]

the original 16mm footage from these missions looks absolutely spectacular

[@Liam-ps2px]

Robert stones documentary 'chasing the moon' had significant amounts of the original 16mm footage and it is unbelievably beautiful.

[@poisonouzapple2467]

@ 🤣🤣 lol

[@altfactor]

The commander was Wally Schirra, who had worked with Cronkite on many later Apollo flights.

[@falconheavy08]

This is amazing footage

[@altfactor]

The first manned launch of a Saturn 1-B and the last one until 1973. The remaining four manned Saturn 1-B launches were in 1973 (the three Apollo command modules that would dock with the Skylab space station) and 1975 (the Apollo command module which would dock with a Russian Soyuz spacecraft).

[@geoffreylee5199]

The noise was greater than they thought; destroyed birds and agitated crocs.

[@imegatrone]

I Really Like The Video CBS coverage of the launch of Apollo Walter Cronkite reports for CBS From Your

[@GGE47]

Beautiful day for a launch.

[@firestar7188]

The next Saturn 1-B launch was Skylab-2, May 25 - 1973.

[@steveneppler5301]

Amazingly clear view of tower jet...

[@samsignorelli]

@ Apollo 14 is the only other one I have seen where it's visible.

[@DavidSmith-fs6pi]

Beautiful launch

[@altfactor]

@joachim2464 It was "chroma-keyed". A "solari" system of numerals with rub-on letters for "Apollo 7, Time Tio Liftoff" had a blue background. The TV camera shot this graphic, and was keyed in the video switcher in a way that the blue background disappared and thus, the graphic could appear over the screen. Today, such a graphic would be computerized, but the computer grtaphic would still have a blue or gren background to be "keyed" in.

[@lvachon]

Remember to turn your volume down after this video, the audio is very quiet.

[@moboutmen]

I remember the NY Daily News headline upon Apollo VII's splashdown: MINUS 80 DAYS TO MOON CRUISE.....PERFECT MISSION CLEARS WAY.

[@anthonyhunt701]

LM5 is there ANY launch day video? Considering how important this mission was, surely CBS has it

[@lunarmodule5]

Not yet ---it is on my list!

[@anthonyhunt701]

@@lunarmodule5 you think that of all missions.. CBS would have it lol! LM5… make it a quest. I was 9 & home with the flu watching all this and even I can’t remember it lol

[@Zoomer30]

To bad they could not have kept the Saturn IB operational. Could have used that and some Apollos to fill the gap until the Shuttle was ready. The delays to the Shuttle program lost us Skylab.

[@travismoss3492]

Zoomer30 If we had kept the Saturn V we could have built the International Space Station in, like, 3-4 launches.

[@zeph3rflash177]

+Travis Moss That's crazy talk. Sky Lab was miniscule compared to the ISS and it was amazing that they managed it on the Saturn V, even though it was damaged in flight. The ISS has taken hundreds of launches from many different organizations to become the structure it is today. Your 'idea' of launching a space station in 3-4 launches is like buying a double-wide mobile home. Sure it's fast and only takes a few semis to haul it into place, but the end result does not have the same flexibility, reliability or endurance.

[@travismoss3492]

the IS.S. weighs 462 tons and the Saturn 5 could take 130 tons to low earth orbit. that is 4 missions with room to spare. Even if the modules where only 77 tons like skylab was it would have only taken 6 launches.

[@zeph3rflash177]

Travis Moss Sorry for the delayed reply. Something to consider is that the ISS consists of many seperate modules, some of which are delicate (e.g. solar panels), and others which are also quite large but light weight (e.g. habitat modules). Skylab was designed to be completely self-contained and without modularity or possibility of expansion. This fact that it is self-contained also attributes to it's weight. Certainly you could launch 6 Skylab-esque modules and wire them together, but the resulting structure could not perform the same tasks the ISS does today. The ability to reconfigure the type and layout of experiment stations and the easy addition of modules is one of the ISS's greatest assets. Also, the Space Shuttle performed the task of launching both crew and station payload simultaneously. This would have required many additional launches by the Saturn V. The Apollo capsule's ability to return experiments and payload to earth was also quite limited. The United States spent 10 billion (inflation adjusted) dollars on the single Skylab program. Launching and supplying 6 Skylab modules would have increased this to approximately $60 billion, without considering the chance of accident. As you may recall, the original Skylab was severely damaged during launch but managed to achieve orbit. In contrast, the United States' total contribution towards the International Space Station through 2013 has been $75 billion. Considering the capabilities this station provides not only for the United States but all member nations, the cost value is excellent. And in the future this will only improve as private companies such as SpaceX, Orbital Sciences, and Sierra Nevada expand their low-cost spaceflight and ISS launch capabilities.

[@altfactor]

And the service module's engines could have raised Skylab's orbit.

[@eamonhorahan666]

wally schirra simply would not tolerate games being played.... especially as he had lost three colleagues on Apollo 1..... one of them being gus grissom.... his close friend... and ed white... the first American spacewalker.... so he had NO tolerance.... for burns being added.... and other things asked of his crew AHEAD of their timeline.... ESPECIALLY as this was a NEW spacecraft on its MAIDEN voyage.... nasa was in a HURRY... but when have we heard THAT before.... at a human cost.... Apollo 1 .... challenger.... Columbia.... wally was absolutely RIGHT!!! And HE should have been made nasa commissioner.... and maybe these avoidable tragedies WOULDNT HAVE HAPPENED!!!!!! but nasa got rid of him because he made NOISE!!!! HAVE THE highest respect for wally schirra!!!!!

[@TheJameswaugh]

an an aircraft maintenance person I really appreciate your sentiment

[@dougbennett8592]

That was absolutely spot on, Eamon!

[@101southsideboy]

@wardenphil stand corrected Apollo 7 was the only manned Apollo rocket ( Saturn 1 or Saturn V) not to launch from launch complex 39

[@altfactor]

@40390576 To be honest, the Apollo 7 astronauts suffered bad colds while in orbit. Had the launch date been October 12th instead of October 11th, the launch likely would have been delayed several days for the astronauts to "get over their colds". And their in-flight behavoir would've been much better, too. I'm not trying to defend them, but I would think suffering colds in zero-G might be one of the most unpleasant experiences possible.

[@dalethelander3781]

I think Chris Kraft was a little heavy-handed in the way he dealt with Eisele and Cunningham.

[@thehaughtcorner]

@@dalethelander3781 No. They were arrogant jerks and deserved what they got. Schirra was out of control because he knew he wasn't going to fly again anyway. Glynn Lunney, who is as decent a man as you'll find, bore the brunt of their obnoxious inflight antics.

[@jetfreak4]

@oomblikkies The main difference was the S-IC, the Saturn V's much bigger and more powerful first stage. The Saturn V had three stages...the Saturn 1B had two. The additional third stage meant that most of the work to get into LEO was done by the first and second stages, leaving the third stage with enough fuel for trans-lunar injection. The Saturn 1B also couldn't carry both people and cargo at one time. The Saturn V remains unsurpassed in its ability to carry people and massive cargo at once.

[@alexandermenschmaschine5361]

She's riding like a dream (c)

[@airforcemax]

Three years and two days before the forty year limit (13 October 1971- 2011) Star Guide, AS born the year of Apollo 7 and owned a 1968 Chevy II Nova. We met in 1993 with her late grandmother AT (2003) former SFHS Cafeteria manager Fall 1982/Spring 1983.

[@ronaldtartaglia4459]

I love this!!!!

[@harrienelle6471]

2:28 "Holy moly" I love it :)

[@nashpeleuses]

Miss the Saturn 1B and Apollo CSM.

[@leftcoaster67]

I miss all the Saturn 1, 1B, and V launch vehicles.

[@nolancain8792]

Ad astra Walter.

[@Radio478]

Amazing, sounds great

[@robertdefoe2396]

Really hard to find full footage of Saturn 1b launches.

[@Zoomer30]

Hard to believe that the Apollo program was done in 1973, just 5 years later. (If you don't count the ASTM) Had we not had to keep a CSM for the Apollo/Soyuz mission, we could have sent a ship to Skylab and boosted it enough to keep it safe until Shuttle.

[@pacific707]

This is the first time I've ever seen the Saturn 1B liftoff of Apollo 7! Though I'm sure I watched it live on television since I was 6 years old when it happened. Maybe I was at school and we didn't have the televisions on...

[@paratrooper629]

I wonder- if Gordo Cooper had been CDR of A7..... Would Wally Schirra stuck around to be CDR of A10?????

[@larrymansfield9393]

Less than 85 years of this flight, man’s main mode of transportation was a buggy strapped to a horse.

[@yrmthr]

The amount of progress made in the short amount of time between the Wright Bros & Apollo is astonishing

[@knobdikker]

@vitoduval Wally simply didn't want any Mickey Mouse or Larry Lightbulb BS when he was up there. Say what you will about him, but his get it done the right way attitude gave the USA a HUGE jump over the USSR and we had a Lunar Christmas, as I recall it, in December 1968 thanks to the perfect Apollo 7 flight!

[@estrela2728]

wanderful.

[@sethkimmel9706]

I didn't hear the call for the interstage separation either just before or just after the tower jettison call. Does a Saturn 1B Jettison the interstage after staging like a Saturn V, or did I just miss it?

[@dalethelander3781]

The 1B had no interstage to speak of. It was attached to the S-1 stage. When you look at the 1B, you'd think there was an interstage with ullage motors. Those were the S-1's retro rockets, since there were no engine fairings to install retros into.

[@reeceemmitt2369]

Interstage was there to avoid the 5 j2’s of the S-II hitting the booster structure if the launch vehicle was yawing/pitching on separation. With the single engine of the S-IVb there was no need for an interstage because there was adequate clearance around the engine bell.

[@Zoomer30]

5 seconds to the sound? Only a mile away.

[@stevesalter3859]

There’s just no other sound like that.

[@Nghilifa]

Except that the S-IVb of the Saturn 1b was not capable of restarting it's engine (Unlike the S-IVb of the Saturn V which performed the parking orbit insertion and TLI-burn)

[@michaelsmith2341]

lack of extra helium

[@allangibson2408]

Technically capable but run to exhaustion with the service module actually being used to achieve orbit. All the Saturn 1B’s did that. The other aside is no Apollo Service Module was ever launched with a full fuel load (the propulsion system was designed around an original proposal that it could launch to earth directly from the Lunar surface…

[@infinitecanadian]

How do they get the numbers on the screen?

[@tkaye2]

It was a luminance key. The graphics were white on a black background, being shot by a dedicated camera. Due to the difference in voltage between the white and black portions of the video signal, the switcher is able to electronically "key" the white graphics over another video source.

[@ricky-6657believe]

Apollo 11. How hard would it be to be in a capsule orbiting the moon, while your buddies are down on the beach playing golf.

[@pacific707]

I've never seen this footage of the Saturn 1B lift off of Apollo 7!

[@samsignorelli]

Same here....I think the only other launch footage I've seen that showed the escape tower being jettisoned and caught on ground tracking cameras was Apollo 14.

[@JBM425]

We get it... Walter was there. :)

[@jetfreak4]

Does anyone know how long it took the Saturn IB to reach orbit?

[@SnaxDesAvions]

10 minutes and 40 seconds for Apollo 7

[@101southsideboy]

only apollo launch that did not take place from launch complex 39 or from kennedy space center

[@Andromedaaaaaa]

Wait... This is completely original/true fotage of apollo 7?? Nice

[@mlovmo]

@40390576 Why? What happened during the flight?

[@michaelsmith2341]

was in 2nd grade in Missouri Richards gebaur afb

[@eltoneisele5303]

I used to fly T-34s out of there with my dad. Went swimming in the Officers Club pool.

[@MrMurthy35]

What about Apollo-6 ???

[@lunarmodule5]

Yln Murthy I have posted Apollo 6's launch on youtube....still there as far as I know..LM5

[@davidknisely3003]

Apollo 6 was the 2nd umanned test flight of the Saturn V launch vehicle. It successfully put a modified unmanned Block 1 Apollo Command and Service Module into low Earth orbit, but problems with the Saturn V prevented the planned higher speed trans lunar injection tests. The flight got little press mainly due to the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on that same day.

[@olentangy74]

Yln Murthy Apollo 6 was unmanned.

[@MrMurthy35]

David Knisely Apollo-10 to 18...All the Vehicles not Landed on North Pole of Moon , Why ???

[@davidknisely3003]

Yln Murthy I answered the same question from you on another thread! The Apollo missions were limited by the fuel the vehicles could carry, so they generally could not go to the polar regions with enough of a safety margin to be assured of getting home safely. For this reason, they stuck with landing sites within 30 degrees of the lunar equator. There had been a proposal for an Apollo mission to near the crater Tycho (43 degrees south) but that was deemed too risky. The north pole of the moon is rough cratered terrain which may be difficult to land on, although several unmanned probes are planned to target the area. There also was no Apollo 18, as Apollo 17 was the last manned mission to the moon.

[@markusweissenbock6337]

German design, US engineering - what a combination. It won't get better ;)

[@Trainlover1995]

Tomorrow's the 49th anniversery!

[@Woody615]

It would be cool if someone could image stabilize this video and keep Apollo VII dead center.

This is a presentation of the TV broadcast. Deal with it.

[@paulward4268]

No such thing as Image Stabilisation back then. Good old manual tracking -- awesome photography.

[@Woody615]

To both p m and Paul Ward: I know they didn't have image stabilization back then. I watched it live. It is obviously a digital file now, so I was suggesting that THIS digital file be run through a stabilization process.

[@mariekatherine5238]

I was in third grade.

[@DiamondboiS]

2:21 Commit liftoff?

[@nolancain8792]

The old launch commit call was literally right before liftoff after the engines were full thrust.

[@wardenphil]

@101southsideboy You mean the only MANNED launch...

[@mangletip]

what is the source of these recordings?im not a boneheaded conspiracy nutter

[@iitzfizz]

When they go up who cares when they come down, that's not my department says Wernher Von Braun

[@rayherbst6655]

Back when folks at NASA and the contractors worked 24/7 just to meet the goal

[@fredthompson4568]

Its a Saturn 1 Rocket...Crazy how No one could get the model right. ALL MINDS ON Saturn 5.

[@deanhirasawa1414]

Sorry the Saturn I was used primarily in the early 1960s to test the initial systems, while the Saturn I-B utilized the SIV-B as its second stage, the same one used as the third stage for the Saturn V. Saturn 1 flew uncrewed test flights from 1961-65. Saturn 1B flew from 1966 to I believe 1975 with Apollo Soyuz.

[@bryanttillman]

I'll be damned, I thot A-7 was a Saturn stack. It's a S-1B-!

[@monaiannucci7831]

Im gone bye

[@JugheadObama]

Old Uncle Commie.

[@scowell]

You mean President Putin?

[@jgunther3398]

I hate hearing Cronkite on these broadcasts because in a few years he was highly instrumental in turning public opinion against the space program, putting today's technology 50 exponential years behind where it could have been if not for him and others

[@thehaughtcorner]

I felt Cronkite was way overrated on these broadcasts. He was out of his depth, and others (Jules Bergman, Frank McGee, etc.) were better. He babbles about nothing during much of this launch, and he almost talked over Neil Armstrong's first words on the lunar surface. This after the A11 landing, when this paragon of American journalism could only come up with "oh boy!" when they landed. And at launch, he said, "Oh, boy, it looks good, Wally!" How would he know whether or not the launch was "good" from his vantage point? On the other hand, shouts out to Jack King and Paul Haney, who did such a tremendous job on all of the launches.

[@Nighthawke70]

Hee hee hee, they moved Walter back a few miles after the first launch of Saturn V. He had to shag rug and get under a table to escape falling ceiling tiles when it lit off.