APOLLO 50 - Ep. 02 - The Start of the Apollo Program (From Apollo 1 to Apollo 8)

Video from the channel link4universe about Apollo 1, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 47:56. Language: Italian. Video type: Documentary.

Second episode of an Italian-language documentary series about the Apollo program, in a conversation format between two hosts. It covers the program from the AS-204 tragedy, known as Apollo 1, to the Apollo 8 flight around the Moon, and devotes a section to the state of the Soviet lunar program.

On 27 January 1967, at Cape Canaveral, the AS-204 crew (Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee) were taking part in a ground test focused on communications. It was such a routine test that no rescue teams were on standby. According to the account, frayed wires next to a metal fitting near the seat sparked a fire in a pure-oxygen atmosphere, and the blaze ended in about 17 seconds. The autopsy attributed the deaths to smoke inhalation. The hatch could not be opened quickly from inside: the procedure took about 90 seconds. The widows asked for the test to be officially recognized as the Apollo 1 mission.

After the accident the capsule was redesigned: the Block 1 version gave way to Block 2, with a hatch that could be opened from inside, and astronauts, including Walter Schirra, took a greater part in the design. Uncrewed flights followed. Apollo 4 debuted the Saturn V with a full test of all stages; Apollo 5, atop a Saturn IB, tested the lunar module and its throttleable descent engine, and on Apollo 6 two second-stage engines failed, though the onboard computer compensated for the fault. On the Soviet side, the program was weakened after Korolev's death, the N1 rocket failed in all four of its test flights, and in 1967 the first Soyuz was lost when its parachute failed to open. Zond 5 carried two tortoises around the Moon.

Apollo 7, launched in October 1968 with Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham, was the program's first crewed flight. Colds in orbit led the crew to refuse to wear their helmets during reentry. The hosts also explain the choice of lunar orbit rendezvous, which allowed the mission to be completed with a single Saturn V. With the lunar module delayed, Apollo 8, carrying Borman, Lovell and Anders, moved the trip to the Moon forward. They went around the far side on Christmas 1968 with a 4-minute-13-second burn with no radio contact. Anders photographed Earth rising over the lunar horizon, the crew read a passage from Genesis, and Lovell had to recalculate the spacecraft's orientation using the stars after computer data was accidentally erased.