Early Apollo Missions: Earth Orbit Apollo missions flew unmanned until October 11, 1968, when Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walt Cunningham orbited the earth for ten days in an Apollo command-service ...
To overcome the Earth’s orbital gravity, NASA required a rocket 100 times more powerful than the Mercury boosters that launched the first American astronaut into orbit in 1961. The three-stage Saturn ...