October 14, 1963. They were announcing us at a press conference. And a week before that, dick arranged a meeting with the head of Johnson Space center and all the directors and different people. So paul was going to be there. Paul was on the phone when he started this meaning, and so he didnt get there when they started it. When he finally got off the call he was telling me he went down there and he went in. He had just finished naming and giving a little brief background of all the people that were selected. The head of engineering i have a name problem, too anyhow, he was the guy who designed the spacecraft. He was the best technical guy we had their. As paul walked in, he raised his hand and said, hey, you cant do that. He says, why . He says, that is 13. Meaning they chose 13 astronauts . Yes. I couldnt believe that the technical guy was being superstitious about 13. And he says, well, whoever is number 13 i really want this guy. So if i have to take another one, then he laid my brochure down. Im the only one to this day who knows when he was selected. I was number 14. Had that not happen, the 13 who knows, right . Had that not happened, i would be here today. Now, lets go back to some serious the apollo 1 fire. Your memories of that. Where were you . That is like a challenger for us. Yes, the challenger is probably much more memorable for people here. The challenger and columbia, both of them terrible disasters. But back in that timeframe, that was in 1967 they had the fire, but in 1966 the beginning of 1966 we were assigned to the crew of what wouldve been apollo two. And we were living with the contractors. I spent 270 days out of the year out at roswell. And so we were living with the vehicles. There were so many things wrong that had to be fixed. Not to mention the operational challenges, trying to get changes in for operational uses that they didnt want to put in because of one thing. It was the cost. It was the schedule. You know, somebody had said believe me, 10 years you try to do something today in 10 years but to get there, they really wanted to keep moving along. So they started making all the improvements at one stage, and the colder the block two spacecraft. But they canceled the black one spacecraft. We begin the backup crew. So we were backup crew for about three months on apollo 1. That that number got changed. More fate. Yes, that is exactly right. We were getting ready for liftoff it was scheduled in february, i think, in 1967. We knew there were a lot of things wrong with the spacecraft. In those days, i could just tell you that our guys i guess you would call it an ego but we had all been Fighter Pilots for at least a dozen years. We all had great confidence in ourselves. And we knew a lot of things that were wrong, but we would find a way that we could handle that. We knew we had to work around it. So we knew that the spacecraft was not great, but were going to fight anyway. In the afternoon of the apollo 1 fire, we had done that same test the night before, but it was what we called plugs in. So the hatch was open. We waited all day, we were all going to fight back together to houston. Finally got late afternoon, like 5 30, and don and i said that, well, we were going to go home. So we left. They had been in the spacecraft all day long. The head of our flight ops walked out to be less, we knew something was wrong. The fire happened while we were in the air. So it was it was really a hell of a deal. Nothing they could do. The whole crew is that in about 19 seconds. I worked on the Fire Investigation for a little while. About three weeks later, at dick took as a side and said that we were going to be on the first group. But they renumbered it, and it ended up being apollo 7. You know, you guys are steely and never have emotions emotionally, how did it hits you . Did you kind of expect something crazy like that withoutquickly you are running the program . Well, we were shocked that it had happened, of course. Because it was the first time that any astronaut had been killed in a spacecraft. You see, what people dont realize is that what was going on back in, our group of 14 in about three years, i think we had lost four of them. Airplane accidents. And we lost roger. But five of that group ended up dying, one way or another. So we kind of understood that. And i dont recall anybody ever really being terribly discouraged by the fire. We really wanted to get the first flight. He was already looking for to leaving nasa eventually. He started eating a lot more serious on the job. I dont remember us ever really being frightened. I mean, you fly airplanes. Rightly or wrongly, you will usually find some reason to blame the pilot. Talk about here. How do you handle it . Or, do you have any . I think no, i have a little bit of fear from time to time. In those days, i was just too stupid. You know, there is an attitudinal thing. Im not a psychologist, i read a lot about that stuff. I think there is a difference in mentality in how people feel about these things. Recognizing it, being aware of it intellectually is an important step. I think a lot of people are afraid of things because they dont have the faintest idea of what is going to god. It is an unknown. Those that learn about things they may be afraid of it because of what they know. And then there is some kind of a middle turf, that many of my friends and people out here today are aware of it. And i know that he was aware of the things that could go wrong. And you have to have the kind of self confidence that enables you to handle that. Now, that self confidence comes from the way that you have lived. You have faced a lot of lesser things along the way, and you have been able to overcome them. Im afraid that we have a society that has been moving away from that. We dont even let our kids have chances, take risks, or anything like that. So, they are not going to be able to handle the kind of fears that are going on in life. I just feel very fortunate that i grew up where did. And i dont ever remember being afraid. Wow. The right stuff. This program is partially about putting the pace program into the context of the cold war. I dont know if you guys know that apollo 7 was the first manned flight of the apollo missions. They had sent some up unmanned, and theyve had worked perfectly. But it is a different deal when you have real guys up there. So your mission was really kind of pivotal in going to the moon, beating the russians, and all that. Put that into the context of the cold war. First of all, not all the unmanned launches were perfect. The press told us they were but, you see, we had good engineers. Astronauts category because we were sitting there. But believe me, what we had was 400,000 people that worked on that Program Government and civilian employees. Those people, they had the guts, too. The management people at the Johnson Space center and throughout nasa, i think i was just most familiar with it there at jsc management had the nerve to make decisions and go with the results of it. And today, it is all too frequently unless they can reduce those risks zero tthey dont want to make a decision. Many of them are much more emotional about the program than i think i was at the time. Part of it was the urgency, though, right . With the cold war, everybody believed we had to get to the moon first. Well, i dont know. But getting back to the question about the russians. You see, we started off the russians, from the very beginning it a sort of different now but from the beginning, the russians were very focused on the Public Relations aspect of it. They wanted to be the head when they could. For example, when we knew we were planning they knew we were planning on the second german flight and testing a little maneuvering devices, they did everything they could to get alexi to do it. And they did it with a spacecraft that wasnt built for it. I mean, that was really risky because they were really they knew when they were taking risks and they were willing to do that just to be out in front, if they cut. So alexi was going to be the first to walk in space. Yes, i was with him just a couple weeks ago. He is like the buzz aldrin of the russian program. Oh we got it. Okay. Anyhow, i think it was 12 minutes and the whole effort was aimed at how to get them back in because the little port that they had had theire, it was a terrible of there, it was a terrible event, but they beat us by a couple of months. On the upside, they have been very, very fortunate. They have had very few accidents. It is just i have been tremendously impressed by that. Back in those days, by the time we had the gemini spacecraft keep in mind, youre getting my personal opinion, that official statement on these things the germany program, that was a more capable spacecraft than i even see today in the russian launches that they have. They could do more, can maneuver more, and that was back 40 years ago. More than that, 50 years ago. In the meantime, the russians have converted more to what i consider more of an engineering aspect. Exploration in the future. And it is a lot cheaper for them over there. So we were engaged in a real fight, and it was like a fight to the finish to get there. And the first time we even met any of the russians it might have been after ed white and i cant remember his name right now after the mission. Over the years, they have become very, very good friends. We have organizations that we work together. And we get along very well. Theyre living together at the International Space station. As a matter of fact, they have outmaneuvered us administratively and cost wise. We are like beginners. After your flight, we said we are going to send these guys around the moon because we were worried the russians would do that before us . There was great concern about the russians beating us to the moon. We were not exposed to a lot of the military intelligence they might have had. Or government intelligence. With us it was kind of what we , knew and felt and heard. But there were people that knew what the russians were doing to push for it. Even in those days, they must have had some pictures. The russians were developing the m1 rocket. 10 Million Pounds of thrust. They were going to go to the moon. And they were doing everything they could to do that. What was the focus of the question . Apollo 8 was originally not going to the moon. And then we sent it up quick. And the russians were shooting to go around the moon. Not a landing. They do not have any landings set for it. But before apollo 7, probably a month or so before apollo 7 flew, they started talking, the not us, the Administration People at nasa, about apollo 8 going around the moon. That was a brandnew thing. We had five giant steps to go to the moon. You know, we were going to test the spacecraft in earth orbit. That was what we did. And we were going to test the lunar module. [phone rings] he didnt follow instructions, did he . [laughter] houston, we have a problem. And then, we test the lunar module in earth orbit. Then fly close to or around the moon. And then do the simulation and the landing. Well, administrators now the administrators did this. They said, we could take apollo 8, and instead of flying a high orbit, we could send it around the moon. They considered everything. It was based on the success of apollo 7. They decided if seven was successful, they would have eight go around the moon. Only later did i begin to realize that it turns out that apollo 7 is the longest, most ambitious, most successful engineering test flight of any new machine ever. And the reason it was so loaded at a planned 11day first mission, was because we had lost 21 months after the apollo 1 fire. A year and a half, maybe a little less. We would have had another flight in theirre to go to the moon. And we had to do it supposedly by the end of the decade. Youre trying to make up for all that. When we went up for an 11 day mission, none of us thought we were going to go 11 days. You could not do that on the first mission. So we were actually surprised and a little irritated towards the end. No film left, no nothing, and we still had to go two more days. I want a shower. Get me back. So that was critical. And because it was successful, apollo 8 went around the moon. And, of course, that is what everybody thinks of as the first of the Apollo Program these days. Well, we have to find out from you. All the astronauts talk about it. But tell us in your own words, when you first got that view from space. How did it hit you . What was it like . What was weightlessness like . Go back. Remember. I do not have a lot of useful things to say about that. Because you are an astronaut, and you are the right stuff, and you are tough. But go down to your inner it makes me think i was totally insensitive to those kinds of things. Because we knew that, by the after one orbit, and we had never been around the world before. Hell, i am the only guy i know that went around the world 163 times before i went to europe. [laughter] so when we were up there we knew , we were going to have to separate and come back and simulate a docking with the s4b stage. And so the last thing in the world we wanted to do was screw up on anything. We were around the world a couple of times. I just signed somebodys picture, here. On the second time around, we had separated. Wally was flying. And i was taking pictures on the from the right side. I was taking pictures of the s4b. I was just snapping these pictures. And, all the way across the southern part of the United States in this picture that i signed, is the 24b. Later, only later, did i realize it was taken over where we lifted off. It was taken over the space center down there. To this day, that is my favorite picture that i took in orbit. But at the time, i was not even looking at that. I was looking at what my job was, which was the s4b. Thats how we were focused on doing things in those days. First time i started getting a thrill after that, we separated and went into a different orbit so we could rendezvous and see how that would work out. Most of the time, people do not realize how difficult it is to see anything on the ground. Did i mention this . No, keep going. Because you look at the International Space station, digital film, fabulous pictures. Always oriented toward the ground. In those days, we drifted. And you drifted because you did not want to use your fuel and your thrusters. Because then you really would have come home early. So we were just drifting. When you think about it, youve got we had five windows. They covered about i think about 150 degrees. The five windows covered about 150 degrees. The biggest was in the hatch. It was a round window, 10 inches in diameter. Two panes. About i think it was 3 4 inch quartz, best glass you could get separated by a tiny gap. So if the window broke, you can still keep pressure in the spacecraft. Unless a window was pointing at the ground, and you are drifting, and you see a tiny little bit of angle you got out there. If it is pointing out the ground and you have a camera and are not involved in some other thing, you might be able to take a picture. If youre looking at the ground keep in mind first off that every 45 minutes youre going , into darkness. 45 minutes darkness. 45 minutes daylight. The camera people did not want you to take pictures within five minutes of sunrise or sunset because, in those days, we had kodachrome film. Do you remember kodachrome film . You could not just keep taking photos like you do today. You had to conserve your film. We had a very limited amount of film on board to save weight also. So it had to be pointed down. If you pointed down, 55 of the earths surface is covered by clouds all the time. The part that is in the clear, that is usually the desert. Saudi arabia. Never saw a cloud over saudi arabia. It is a wonderful thing to take a picture of. You can take a picture and never even see a city down there in the desert on that. There was a lot of things like this. You did not want to take it more than 30 degrees off the vertical because of the atmosphere up there. It was hard to get pictures. We are going to ask some questions of the iss astronauts. And, you know, one of your questions your questions is, do we think that we should have a Fighter Pilot training or some kind of Training Like that for todays astronauts . Back when you guys did it most , of you guys were Fighter Pilots, right . If you were not a Fighter Pilot, you did not apply. There was nothing there is a lot of changes that has gone on in the people in the space program. For today, you do not have to be a pilot. And one of the reasons you do not have to be a pilot is because, in the Space Shuttle, which is the greatest flying machine ever built and operated by man that may be a minority opinion, but i feel strongly about that you always had a couple of pilots. And they did a fantastic job in my opinion. But because of what went on 40 and 50 years ago, we were able to develop hardware and a program where you could carry passengers up. You did not have to be a pilot. And that is the way it is now. And now even with the new capsules they are coming up with, they are going to be able to take people that arent pilots. Back in the days when they did not know what it was going to take, nasa decided to get the people that have the best chance of succeeding. The russians had taken a different attitude. They their people in the spacecraft did virtually nothing. They were strapped in. They operated the spacecraft. It has always been operated remotely. Even today, it operates remotely. It is not a satisfying thing for an aviator. In those days, we did not do that. And so they made their best guess of what they thought was. Thought it was. And they took it from the pilot field, all military. In fact our group was the first , group where you do not have to have been a test pilot. Half of our group was test pilots anyway. You had to have Fighter Pilot experiences. I have always felt that the advantage that gave us, every one of those people, myself included, we had spent at least 10 or 12 years, sometimes more than that, flying fighter aircraft. In that you develop the kind of , selfconfidence it takes. You think you are the best whether you are the best or not. You have to have that kind of an attitude out there. Plus we have flown with these people in all kinds of things. I was back mine was at the end of the korean war. Anybody here remember korea . [laughter] anyway, what that does is give you the sense that you can depend on your life on the other guy in the other airplane. In the spacecraft, the same way. See we knew that we could bet , our life on our associates. And that worked out very well. Today, they are focused able lot a whole lot lot more on the right ki