Apollo 7, the Saturn 1B and Some Very Special People

I am writing this on a plane on my way home to New York after a trip to Dallas—where I attended a luncheon honoring Walter Cunningham and the 40th anniversary of his Apollo 7 flight.  On October 11, 1968, Walt and crewmates Wally Schirra and Donn Eisele became the first astronauts to fly an Apollo spacecraft, and returned

America to orbit nearly 22 months after the Apollo 1 fire.

This was not your average luncheon and frankly, I wasn't just there to observe. For the past couple of months my colleague Deb Martin and I were lucky enough to help Walt's wife Dot plan part of this event. But our role was easy. As it turned out, the real work was done not only by Dot but also by a group of truly dedicated model rocketeers who built more than 30 beautiful 1/70th-scale models of the Saturn 1B that lifted the Apollo 7 crew into space 40 years ago.

The Saturn 1B has always been my favorite rocket among NASA's launch vehicles. It has a design elegance that has drawn the interest of modelers for decades now. To be sure, the larger and far more powerful Saturn V has always gotten more attention because it took us to the Moon. And it is popular among modelers as well. But the Saturn 1B, with its eight fuel tanks, eight fins and intricate detailing, gets my vote when it comes to sheer design.

The sight of these nearly three dozen Saturn 1B models serving as the table centerpieces for the luncheon was truly a memorable one. And considering who was sitting at those tables, this was a rare event, indeed. At one table there was Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Bill Anders, Alan Bean, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and the guest of honor, Walt Cunningham. As many of you know, Walt is our Viewpoint columnist for LAUNCH and we owe him a great deal for his unwavering support of the magazine.

Other tables also had distinguished guests, including veteran NASA flight controller Gene Kranz and space shuttle astronauts Rick Hauck and Jim Reilly. It was an all-star lineup. And appearing via videotape was President George Bush, and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, along with the Expedition 17 crew of the International Space Station. Dot Cunningham asked, and I consented, to write the videotape script for both former President Bush and the ISS crew. Maybe I've found a new calling as a scriptwriter!

The night before, at a private reception, I had a chance to talk at length with several people who played a major role in our nation's pioneering efforts in space, including Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders. We have a 40th anniversary feature coming up on the Apollo 8 mission in the November/December issue of LAUNCH, and through a mutual friend (Alaska Airlines captain Pat Fitzpatrick), Bill had graciously agreed to "vet" the article for us. I emailed a copy of the article to Walt so he could print it out for Bill while he was visiting a couple of days before the luncheon. Bill wrote his changes in the margins of the printout and gave it to me in Dallas. Not bad to have one of the crew members of Apollo 8 actually help edit the article! I can't neglect to mention that the article was authored by LAUNCH Contributing Editor Ted Spitzmiller, a space historian and excellent writer.

And regarding the luncheon, I want to mention the tireless efforts made by Jamye Flowers Coplin, who worked in the Astronaut Office during the Apollo years and helped Dot in planning this event. It seemed like Jamye, Dot, and Deb Martin and I were either on the phone daily as the weeks went by or swapping updates via email (and some of those are pricelessly funny!)

The relationships we're building at LAUNCH with the space community are heartening and inspirational, to say the least. But just as important are the friendships and support from the hobby community, and there is no better testament to that than the project to build the Saturn 1B models in commemoration of the Apollo 7 flight. The key person in all of this is Carl McLawhorn, founder of Semroc Astronautics, a North Carolina-based model rocket company. Carl is not only one of the most knowledgeable people I've ever known in the model rocketry hobby, he's also one of the finest people I've ever met. He and his wife Sheryl and son Bruce run an outstanding company, making world-class products, and they are first-class citizens.

Carl agreed to supply all of the Saturn 1B kits for this project. These are complicated kits designed for master modelers. The fact that some 26 builders constructed 33 of these models in what amounted to less than a month is amazing. It started with John Dyer, the owner of Red River Rocketry in Texas. John is another wonderful model rocketeer and person. John agreed right off the bat to get a group together in the Dallas area to build 10 of these models. And they pulled it off, building them almost assembly style on weekends at the home of Jack and Suzy Sprague. I was privy to some of their back-and-forth emails, which always included a line like "I'll see you again at the Sprague Mansion this weekend."

As many as 150 hours of labor was spent on these models, and it showed. They were displayed during the luncheon on red tablecloths with yellow and red flowers beneath the rockets. And each rocket stood on a plexi-glass stand designed and built by Carl McLawhorn with an etching of Apollo 7's mission patch and this inscription:

Apollo 7 October 11-22, 1968
America's First Apollo Mission
40th Anniversary Luncheon
October 17, 2008

Just outstanding!

—Mark Mayfield

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