Apollo 7

Hi,

I was over in S.S.S reading a thread about how Wally Schirra refused
to wear his helmet during re-entry on Apollo 7. Can anyone shed some light
on this incident? I remember reading somewhere that the A7 astronauts
became upset with mission control at some point in the mission and then
became un-cooperative for the remainder of the mission. Was this part of
that issue?

JD

Joe Delphi wrote:

Hi,

I was over in S.S.S reading a thread about how Wally Schirra refused
to wear his helmet during re-entry on Apollo 7. Can anyone shed some
light
on this incident? I remember reading somewhere that the A7 astronauts
became upset with mission control at some point in the mission and then
became un-cooperative for the remainder of the mission. Was this part of
that issue?

JD


He had a head cold and thought he might damage his ear drums with the helmet
on

al wrote:
Joe Delphi wrote:

Hi,

I was over in S.S.S reading a thread about how Wally Schirra refused
to wear his helmet during re-entry on Apollo 7. Can anyone shed some
light
on this incident? I remember reading somewhere that the A7 astronauts
became upset with mission control at some point in the mission and then
became un-cooperative for the remainder of the mission. Was this part of
that issue?

JD


He had a head cold and thought he might damage his ear drums with the helmet
on

He and the crew had head colds. Mercury and Gemini spacesuits allowed
the wearer to open the faceplate with the helmet still in place. Apollo
7 was the first use of the Apollo spacesuit with the "fish bowl"
helments. It was all or nothing. There was no faceplate to open. Wally
Schirra wanted to the crew to be able to pinch their noses and blow to
equalize pressure in their ear drums as atmospheric pressure increased
during reentry. I believe that Wally wanted to reenter in coveralls.
Deke Slayton reminded him that this was the first reentry of a new
spacecraft. He reminded Wally that Gus Grissom and John Young had a
rough parachute deployment on Gemin 3, causing their faceplates to bump
the instrument panel. Wally stood firm about not wearing the helmets. I
believe the final compromise was the crew would reenter wearing their
spacesuits, but not the helments.

Of course earlier in the flight, Wally had refused to do the first U.S.
live broadcast from space because the crew didn't feel well. (Gordon
Cooper had a slow scan TV camera on his Mercury flight, but it was more
like a series of still pictures being sent to the ground.) This was to
be a big P.R. coup for NASA and all of the networks were geared up for
the show. The Apollo 7 crew did the telecast a day or so later, but the
damage had been done by that time.

- Rusty

-Rusty


-Rusty

In article .com,
Rusty wrote:

Wally stood firm about not wearing the helmets. I
believe the final compromise was the crew would reenter wearing their
spacesuits, but not the helments.

.... and is this all related to why none of this crew ever flew in
space again?

Nick

Nicholas Fitzpatrick wrote:
In article .com,
Rusty wrote:

Wally stood firm about not wearing the helmets. I
believe the final compromise was the crew would reenter wearing their
spacesuits, but not the helments.

... and is this all related to why none of this crew ever flew in
space again?

Nick

Before the flight Wally had announced it would be his last flight.
During the mission, he was testy and short with Houston. He had nothing
to lose. Having a head cold in space didn't improve his attitude. He
refused to add experiments to the schedule, refused to do the first
U.S. space TV broadcast on time and finally refused to wear helmets
during reentry. The other Apollo 7 crew members were caught in the
middle. They supported their commander while in orbit and were somewhat
testy with Houston also. NASA management took it out on Cunningham and
Eisele. They never flew again, in part for what happened on Apollo 7.

Rusty

"Rusty" wrote in message
ups.com...
NASA management took it out on Cunningham and
Eisele. They never flew again, in part for what happened on Apollo 7.

Was the late Col. Eisele in the backup crew for Apollo 10? If so, that
doesn't sound like a total shut-out.

Neil Gerace wrote:
"Rusty" wrote in message
ups.com...
NASA management took it out on Cunningham and
Eisele. They never flew again, in part for what happened on Apollo 7.

Was the late Col. Eisele in the backup crew for Apollo 10? If so, that
doesn't sound like a total shut-out.

Slayton put Eisele on the Apollo 10 backup crew, but Slayton never
intended for Eisele to fly with an Apollo prime crew. Slayton wanted to
move Eisele to the Skylab program after the Apollo 10 backup role.
Eisele left NASA before that happened.

-Rusty

On 23 Nov 2005 22:00:31 -0800, "Rusty"
wrote:

Slayton put Eisele on the Apollo 10 backup crew, but Slayton never
intended for Eisele to fly with an Apollo prime crew. Slayton wanted to
move Eisele to the Skylab program after the Apollo 10 backup role.
Eisele left NASA before that happened.

....IIRC, there was some hints in later years from Deke himself that
Eisele not only wouldn't have been on A10 had the backup crew been
moved up to replace the prime crew, but he wouldn't have flown a
Skylab mission had he stuck around. He and Cunningham were essentially
slated to be permanently grounded for the "mutiny", even though when
you get down to the heart of the matter Schirra was the one ultimately
responsible for what happened. However, since he bailed after A7,
*someone* had to pay for what happened.

....Personally, what I'd love to see happen is for Virgin to get their
SpaceShipOne clones into service, and put Cunningham, Schweikardt, and
Joe Allen on the first flight. Gratis.

OM
--
]=======================================[
OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld
Let's face it: Sometimes you *need*
an obnoxious opinion in your day!
]=======================================[

On 23 Nov 2005 23:45:21 -0500, (Nicholas Fitzpatrick)
wrote:

In article .com,
Rusty wrote:

Wally stood firm about not wearing the helmets. I
believe the final compromise was the crew would reenter wearing their
spacesuits, but not the helments.

... and is this all related to why none of this crew ever flew in
space again?

....Not totally. Wally had announced in advance that he was retiring
after A7 - the whole regimen of training had finally gotten to him,
and he admittedly was bummed out about the program in general after
the loss of A1 - so even if the "mutiny" hadn't happened, he still
wouldn't have flown again. Donn and Walt, on the other hand, sort of
got scapegoated for the whole affair because a) they began to support
and back up Wally's bad attitude and refusal to accept unscheduled and
unprepared mission changes, and b) since Wally was leaving NASA
*someone* had to be punished. Outright firing either of them would
have looked bad and done the program far more harm than good, so they
were relegated to backup and AAP slots. Donn got tired of the whole
mess and resigned/retired, while Walt stuck with Skylab until it
became apparent that despite doing an excellent job at helping get the
program off the ground he wasn't going to be forgiven for A7, and
wasn't assigned to a crew.

OM
--
]=======================================[
OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld
Let's face it: Sometimes you *need*
an obnoxious opinion in your day!
]=======================================[

OM wrote:
On 23 Nov 2005 22:00:31 -0800, "Rusty"
wrote:

...Personally, what I'd love to see happen is for Virgin to get their
SpaceShipOne clones into service, and put Cunningham, Schweikardt, and
Joe Allen on the first flight. Gratis.

OM
--

The way the Shuttle program is going, you can add Barbara Morgan to the
list.

;-)


Rusty