Remembering the forgotten Apollo missions 50 years later

Apollo 7 astronaut Walt Cunningham

 There is a lot of hype building for next year’s 50th anniversary of the first landing on the moon, and deservedly so.

Unfortunately, there are several Apollo missions preceding Apollo 11 that have become all but forgotten in the short time since that climatic experience in human achievement. Sitting in the proverbial dustbin of modern history are the flights of Apollo 7, Apollo 9, and Apollo 10. Apollo 8 is often remembered for being the first to send men to the moon, although they didn’t land. Apollo 10 also went to the moon but doesn’t get the same recognition as Apollo 8 because it wasn’t first.

Oct. 11 was the 50th anniversary of Apollo 7 and it passed without fanfare. One notable exception was the week before when Apollo 7 Lunar Module Pilot Walt Cunningham spoke at Space Center Houston as part of the center’s Thought Leader Series.

The flight was the first for the three-man Apollo spacecraft and was also the first manned flight since the Apollo 1 fire that killed three astronauts during a training exercise. The 11-day mission was the only spaceflight for Cunningham and Command Module Pilot Donn Eisele, and the third and last for Commander Wally Schirra, who flew Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions.

Cunningham acknowledged that the public often overlooks his mission.

“I can tell you they rarely recall Apollo 7 and Apollo 9,” he said. “Those were test missions, actually, and we stayed in Earth orbit. So that’s why they don’t think much about them back in those days. And both of those test missions played a critical role in the most historic achievement in our nation’s history. That’s landing a man on the moon.”

Cunningham, 86, is comfortable with his place in history. As he talked about his historic mission in space, he also spoke about adventure, courage, and integrity and the role they played not only during Apollo but also today.

Walt Cunningham, left, the Apollo 7 lunar module pilot,
greets former flight director Glynn Lunny.

“Why is space not a bigger factor in today’s society? What has changed? Well, our society has changed,” he said. “Apollo was a story of exploration and adventure. My generation had the opportunity and the courage to look around the moon and reach for the stars. We didn’t shy away from the unknown and we were willing to take a risk. We were exploring the next frontier. Today, the entire world takes pride in mankind’s greatest adventure.”

Cunningham spoke of a French swimmer who attempted to swim across the Atlantic Ocean, saying he gave the best definition of adventure. To be an adventure, it must meet three conditions: “It must advance human knowledge, it must have the real risk of dying, and it must have an uncertain outcome. Well, that was the Apollo program to land a man on the moon,” he said.

Comparing the Golden Age of spaceflight to the sea voyages of discovery in the 1400s and 1500s, he said mankind cannot expand his horizons without taking risk.

“Only 193 years after establishing the American flag on this planet we planted it on a foreign body in the universe,” he said. “That took a team willing to stick their necks out. And while our engineers, managers and astronauts were willing to risk failing, I have to tell you, we never really thought about failing. We were racing our competition to land a man on the moon and we refused to lose to anyone or anything.

“Back in those days we shared a common dream to test the limits of man’s imagination and his daring. That attitude enabled us to overcome every obstacle in one of the most challenging and risky endeavors in history. And it wasn’t just for Americans. The entire world takes pride in man’s greatest adventure.”

He added, “Any project as complex as Apollo requires three things. It requires the resources, the technology, and the will to do it. With the Cold War, all three of those came together in the 1960s and we went to the moon.”

The Apollo 7 crew was originally slated as the prime crew for Apollo 2, but as the schedule slipped, that mission was scrubbed and they became the backup crew for Apollo 1. They trained closely with the astronauts who died in the fire.

“Twenty-one months later, after about 1,040 changes we made after the Apollo 1 fire, Apollo 7, it was like the mythical phoenix, it was rising from the ashes of the Apollo 1 fire,” Cunningham said. “Apollo 7 was an ambitious effort to make up for lost time. In the planned 11 days we tested all of the propulsion systems, the spacecraft systems, the docking and rendezvous maneuver, the ground systems, many other things at that time. To our surprise, Apollo 7 survived the full 11 days. Things were going so well they added four additional objectives to the mission while we were up there.

“To this day, Apollo 7 is still the longest, the most ambitious, the most successful first test flight of any new flying machine, ever. My personal feeling about it is I thought it was an amazingly good spacecraft,” he said.

Apollo 7 also marked the first time television cameras were used to broadcast live from space.

“We found out when we got back that we got an Emmy,” he said.

A common theme throughout Cunningham’s lecture was risk-taking.

“Our society today seems intent on eliminating risk and looking for absolute assurances that something can be done before we commit to do it. And we’re overwhelmed with the politically correct decision-making that’s going on,” he said. “Even our space program is beginning to reflect today’s risk-adverse society. NASA has evolved into a more bureaucratic and less efficient agency. That once rambunctious American spirit of innovation and adventure is being paralyzed by a desire for a risk-free society.

“Exploration is not about eliminating risk. It’s about managing risk. Today we hear incessant talk of limits, usually expressed though as a shortage of funds. The only real limits are those that we place on ourselves. Today, grand aspirations are usually at the mercy of politicians – possibly the most risk-adverse segment of our society.”

He said he was not afraid of the mission but he was afraid to fail. That motivated him and his crewmates. It also drives him in civilian life.

“The chance of dangerous adventure means accepting the risk of failure. If you’re not willing to risk failure, I don’t think you deserve to win. When you do win, you win big and that’s true in all kinds of fields of human endeavor.

“We think back on the Apollo program, it had it all, it had challenges, competition, imagination, leadership, teamwork, technological breakthroughs, and it also had its risk and uncertainty,” he said.

Cunningham was asked by an audience member, “What is our next Apollo?”

“Mars. Eventually we will get there because that is the next frontier. We’ve just stuck our foot into it barely by going to the moon… If we go back to the moon we ought to be willing to set up a facility there… I think we need to be reaching out and I think our next step should be establishing a permanent residence on the moon and develop what scientific skills we can out of it and, eventually, some of you might be young enough to live when we might go to Mars,” he said.

It’s time for this red state to bleed a little blue

Anyone who knows me well or has read my columns for any length of time knows that I am just a tad bit on the conservative side.

As a journalist I strive to maintain political neutrality and afford equal access to people of all parties. My personal politics, however, run a deep red. That’s why I find it very hard to write this next sentence. It’s time for Texas to bleed a little blue. It’s been said that too much of a good thing can be bad for you and I think that holds true in politics as well. Republicans have had such a stranglehold on so many levels of government for so long that it is creating problems.

Specifically, I see complacency and disenfranchisement. More than just see it, I’ve experienced it. For quite some time now Democrats have been talking about a Blue Tide this November. I think a Blue Tide would be bad for the state, but a Blue Trickle is necessary to maintain a system of checks and balances.

I think one of the reasons Democrats are so well organized and forceful this year is because they’ve had enough of the status quo. They’ve been put down and ignored for a long time. In the past they’ve run token campaigns against the Big Red Machine with less than marginal success. This year I see more than token campaigns. I see unity and determination among Democrats.

The marquee matchup is the U.S. Senate race between Republican Sen. Rafael “Ted” Cruz and Democrat Rep. Robert “Beto” O’Rourke. My general observation so far is that O’Rourke is running a positive, grassroots campaign that is appealing to a lot of people in this area. The Beto signs seem to outnumber the Cruz signs locally.

Cruz, on the other hand, is running a negative, anti-Beto campaign and seems to be relying on establishment support and the benefits of incumbency. It appears to me that his campaign is centered around tearing down his opponent rather than building on his accomplishments. I have moral issues with that approach. I still won’t vote for O’Rourke, but I’m going to have to hold my nose and pull on the hip waders to pull the lever for Cruz.

On a local level, I generally support the local Republican candidates, but I’m finding my support weakening over time. A lot of it has to do with my wife’s healthcare plan. Most people don’t know this, but Sandy has been working on a national healthcare plan ever since the Obama Administration rolled out the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). She has studied this topic and fine-tuned her plan over several years. And she knows what she’s talking about. Sandy has a master’s degree in health care administration, a nursing degree, and is employed by the UT Health in the Texas Medical Center.

Her plan, in a nutshell, places the emphasis on preventive care over emergency care. Getting anyone in government to pay attention to her is nearly impossible. We did get to meet with U.S. Rep. Pete Olson at his office on Aug. 25, 2017. The meeting was interrupted by a thunderstorm that knocked the power out. It was the first wave of storms from Hurricane Harvey, and everything we discussed was quickly forgotten.

Undaunted, she has reached out to the offices of Gov. Greg Abbott, Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, and State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst. None of them has responded to her. Not even so much as an acknowledgement that they received her request. All these elected officials are Republicans. If this is how they treat people within their own party, I can just imagine what it’s like for Democrats, independents, and people of third parties. That’s why I say it might be time for this state to bleed a little blue. How can we expect to be heard if we are under the leadership of a single, large, deaf, party?

Additionally, our school districts are suffering from less state funding and being tasked with more unfunded mandates. In the last Legislative session, we heard a lot of talk from legislators going in that they supported public education, but their votes spoke otherwise. I’m looking specifically at Sen. Kolkhorst and Sen. Joan Huffman, both of whom represent parts of Fort Bend County and both of whom sit on the Senate Finance Committee.

There are other issues as well, but I won’t belabor the point. To be sure, our elected officials are generally doing a good job, but without competition, they grow complacent. With a party monopoly in power the disenfranchised have nowhere to turn. As much as I love living in a deep red state, I think a little purple might do us all some good in the long run. Even the Republican Party can benefit from having a few wounds to lick. It’s through failure that we learn and grow. Success is built on failure, not monopolies.

Take two: Skeeters dance a second time in the Duck’s pond

The Sugar Land Skeeters celebrate winning the Atlantic 

League championship Sunday night in Long Island by 

hoisting the championship trophy. (Photo by Charlie Barbeisch)

For the second time in three years the Sugar Land Skeeters have done their victory dance in the back yard of the Long Island Ducks!

After winning the Atlantic League championship in 2016 with a three-game sweep of the Ducks, the Skeeters needed all five games of the championship series to do it again this year. The Skeeters, who won the first two games of the series at home, won Game 5 on Sunday 4-1. It also put the Ducks on a 0-3 skid in the last three championship series, with the York Revolution winning last year’s title over Long Island.

It’s been nothing short of amazing to watch how first-year manager Pete Incaviglia has spun the player turnstile all season long and produced a powerhouse winner. The team lost a record 12 players who had their contracts purchased by Major League teams and two more that went to Mexican leagues. That’s 14 players – mostly pitchers – who came and went, yet the wins kept coming all season. The Skeeters won the first and second halves of play while amassing an 81-45 record, the second best in franchise history.

Not only did the call-ups come, but Incaviglia stayed busy wheeling and dealing players. There are only 11 players on the roster to end the season that were playing for the team in April. Yet through all the changes the Skeeters kept rolling up W’s with incredible consistency.

It was hard to tell at the beginning of the season how it would go for the Skeeters. Gary Gaetti, who managed the team through the first six seasons, was gone and Incaviglia was something of an unknown commodity to Sugar Land fans. The team had just a small handful of players back from the previous season and many of the big-name, marquee players the organization touted in the pre-season were cut before the first game.

When Incaviglia was announced as the new manager, he promised the fans would see good old-fashioned, hardnosed baseball, and on that note, he delivered. Incaviglia, with his hot temper and foul mouth, routinely made short order of umpires and had surprisingly very few ejections. In the seven years I’ve been watching the Skeeters I’ve never seen a skipper spend more time in an umpire’s face than Incaviglia. It all goes to demonstrate how hard he plays and fights for his players.

Although the Skeeters dominated the regular season, the playoffs were a whole different matter. In the Freedom Division Championship Series, the Skeeters never lead until the walk-off grand slam by Tony Thomas in Game 5. The Skeeters had to keep catching up to the Lancaster Barnstormers to force Game 5.

In the Atlantic League Championship Series, it looked like the Skeeters would sweep the Ducks again after taking the first two games at home. The Ducks, however, won the next two in Long Island to bring about the winner-take-all fifth game. The Skeeters hosted watch parties Saturday and Sunday night at Constellation Field, but a prior commitment kept me from attending. It did not, however, prevent me from nearly draining the battery on my cell phone Sunday night as I listened to the radio broadcast by Ira Liebman.

This is the second championship for the Skeeters and the second time they’ve won it on the road in New York. The next time they win the ALCS, I want to see them dance at home for a change. We fans would love to celebrate with them.
In the meantime, celebrations are under way in Sugar Land. This is the home of champions. The Atlantic League trophy is back in Texas, where we plan to keep it for a while. If the rest of the league would like to have it, they can just come and take it!