Apollo 7 Preparation - Countdown Demonstration Test

Video from the channel The Technicolor Whiscash about Apollo 7, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 16:21. Language: English. Video type: Archive footage.

Footage of Apollo 7's preparation during the countdown demonstration test, accompanied by the audio of a contemporary interview with Donn Eisele, command module pilot. Eisele explains his background: born in Columbus, Ohio, trained at the Naval Academy, about 16 years in the Air Force, and a test pilot at Kirtland, where he flew the F-104, F-100 and a B-57. He was selected in 1963 in the third group of astronauts.

NASA material recorded in the months before launch, when Eisele had been with the agency for five years and assigned to Apollo 7 for a little over a year.

Eisele recalls that the crew had been assigned to the second Apollo flight, which was cancelled; they became backup crew for 204 and, after the accident, prime crew. On the mission he would serve as navigator: he describes the guidance system with computer, inertial and optical platform, a sextant with 28x magnification and a 1.8° field of view, and an unmagnified telescope with roughly a 90° field, star alignment using the computer's catalog, and navigation using about 300 Earth landmarks. He also reviews the opening of the cabin relief valves 46 seconds after liftoff and the roughly three hours docked to the S-IVB before the simulated docking exercise.