Apollo Pilot Outward Odyssey A People’s History of Spaceflight Series editor Colin Burgess Apollo Pilot The Memoir of Astronaut Donn Eisele Donn Eisele Edited and with a foreword by Francis French Afterword by Susie Eisele Black Historical overview by Amy Shira Teitel UNI V ER SI T Y OF NEBR A SK A PRESS • L INCOL N & LONDON © 2017 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska All photographs are courtesy of nasa. All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Eisele, Donn, 1930– 1987. | French, Francis. | Eisele Black, Susie. | Teitel, Amy Shira. Title: Apollo pilot: the memoir of astronaut Donn Eisele / Donn Eisele; edited and with a foreword by Francis French; afterword by Susie Eisele Black; historical overview by Amy Shira Teitel. Description: Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [2017] | Series: Outward odyssey. A people’s history of spaceflight | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2016027504 isbn 9780803262836 (cloth: alk. paper) isbn 9780803299528 (epub) isbn 9780803299535 (mobi) isbn 9780803299542 (pdf) Subjects: lcsh: Eisele, Donn, 1930– 1987. | Astronauts— United States— Biography. | Project Apollo (U.S.) | Apollo 7 (Spacecraft) Classification: lcc tl789.85.e37 e37 2017 | ddc 629.450092 [B]— dc23 lc record available at https:// lccn.loc.gov/2016027504 Set in Adobe Garamond Pro by Rachel Gould. Contents List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii Foreword by Francis French. . . . . . . . . . . . ix 1. Launch Morning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 2. Beginnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3. Astronaut Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 4. Going Back to Houston. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 5. After the Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 6. Liftoff. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 7. Rendezvous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 8. The Grandeur of Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 9. Return to Earth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 10. Splashdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97 11. Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 12. After the Flight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .117 Afterword by Susie Eisele Black. . . . . . . . . .119 Historical Overview by Amy Shira Teitel . . . . 127 Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Illustrations Following page 66 1. Practicing ocean recovery techniques 2. The Apollo 7 crew 3. At the North American plant 4. The crew through the Apollo spacecraft hatch 5. A smiling Donn Eisele 6. The Command and Service Modules 7. Crew press conference 8. Training in the spacecraft simulators 9. Training in the days prior to launch 10. Briefing in the crew quarters by Deke Slayton 11. Reading over the flight plan 12. The rocket 13. Donn Eisele reads the morning paper 14. Donn Eisele at the pre- launch breakfast 15. Some final words from Deke Slayton to Donn Eisele 16. Preparing to launch 17. Donn Eisele and Walt Cunningham 18. Apollo 7 launches 19. Apollo 7 clears the top of the launch gantry 20. Apollo 7 accelerates into space 21. A happy Donn Eisele in space 22. Donn Eisele caught in the sun’s glare in space 23. Film still of Donn Eisele working in space 24. Rendezvous with the booster in orbit 25. Flying close to the s- ivb booster in space 26. Donn Eisele in space, with sextant 27. Donn Eisele and Wally Schirra 28. Arriving on the deck of the recovery carrier 29. The crew escorted along the red carpet after splashdown 30. A nauseous Donn Eisele soon after returning to Earth 31. Taking a phone call from President Johnson 32. The Apollo 7 spacecraft is recovered from the ocean 33. On the recovery ship 34. The crew returns to the launch site 35. Extensive debriefings after the mission 36. With Deke Slayton after the flight 37. Receiving an award from President Johnson Foreword Francis French Donn Eisele was a curious conundrum. Voted most likely to succeed by his high school graduating class, he was seen as athletically gifted and aca- demically very smart. Yet when interviewed during his Apollo years, his hometown colleagues said they never imagined Donn would do anything as adventurous as flying into space. He was a quiet, hard- working, well- liked guy. No one in Columbus, Ohio, seemed surprised that he had been a success in life. Nevertheless, a few had to look at old photos to confirm that they were talking about the right person. Donn Eisele didn’t seem to leave a bad impression— rather, he breezed through many people’s lives without leaving much of an impression at all. Born in 1930 in Columbus, Ohio, the son of a newspaper printer, Eisele grew up in a very close, doting family. He hadn’t planned to attend the Naval Academy, but he heard that his congressman was giving appoint- ments on a competitive basis, and it might save his parents some money if the military paid his way through college. The day of the test, Eisele later admitted, was an excuse to be out of school. He felt he had only a slim chance of winning a spot in the prestigious academy, but to his surprise found the test easy. Eisele had always been fascinated by flying, too, but didn’t think he would ever pilot an aircraft. He hadn’t imagined himself in the military as a youth, and he knew that learning to fly as a civilian was very expen- sive. He imagined a possible career in aeronautical engineering, as he was attracted to the technical side of aviation, but instead fell into an impres- sive flying career almost by accident. Donn Eisele’s story was one that intrigued me when I coauthored the space history book In the Shadow of the Moon. Eisele’s fellow Apollo 7 astro- nauts Wally Schirra and Walt Cunningham had become extremely help-