- 2 years ago
In the Sixties
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00:00 Astronauts report it feels good. T-minus 10, 9, ignition sequence start, 6,
00:07 [engine noise]
00:14 [music]
00:35 The astronauts from the glory days of NASA's Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space
00:39 programs were more celebrated than movie stars, more idolized than sports heroes.
00:46 For them, only one car truly possessed the right stuff, the Chevrolet Corvette.
00:53 We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because
00:58 they are easy, but because they are hard.
01:01 In July of 1969, NASA delivered on President John F. Kennedy's audacious pledge.
01:08 Landing Americans on the moon before the end of the decade.
01:14 I watched it all as a starstruck boy, these giant leaps in human history, and
01:22 the joy and wonder I felt then has never dimmed.
01:27 So join me as I revisit the shrines of the American space race, behind the
01:32 wheel of America's most iconic sports car, and in the company of a bona fide
01:37 NASA legend who in 1968 launched atop a Saturn rocket as part of the greatest
01:43 adventure mankind has ever known.
01:49 This beautiful '69 427 Big Block once belonged to Alan Bean, who as lunar
01:55 module pilot on Apollo 12 became only the fourth human being to walk on the moon.
02:02 Bean's crewmates had matching black-on-gold vets of their own.
02:06 Today, this car, bearing initials for lunar module pilot on its flanks, is the
02:12 only one of the three that remains.
02:15 Then there's this 2005 C6, owned by an original astronaut who's still driving
02:21 Corvettes.
02:23 Civilian Walt Cunningham, an ex-marine fighter pilot, was selected for the
02:27 third group of NASA astronauts in late 1963, and went on to fly aboard one of
02:33 the most watched missions of them all.
02:36 In 1968, Cunningham spent 11 days in Earth orbit aboard Apollo 7, the crucial
02:42 first flight of the Apollo program and the first manned launch since the
02:47 devastating Apollo 1 fire.
02:50 Walt agreed to meet me at Kennedy Space Center near Orlando, Florida, to show
02:54 me a thing or two about his old stomping grounds.
02:57 Of course, it didn't hurt that he'd also have a chance to get his hands on my
03:01 brand new 2014 C7 vet.
03:05 All right, Walt, we're here at Kennedy Space Center in the rocket garden, and
03:08 we're standing next to a Saturn 1B.
03:11 This is the actual type of rocket that you flew on Apollo 7.
03:14 Yeah, this is the only remaining one that I know that's on display.
03:19 So it's always a pleasure for me to be down here and take a look and just see a
03:23 Saturn 1B that's still left.
03:24 How does it feel to look up at this monster and say, "I rode this in 1968"?
03:30 I now am impressed.
03:31 In those days, it was something I just took for granted.
03:34 We were just going to fly whatever vehicle was out there, we were going to go
03:37 fly it.
03:38 And now I come back and I can appreciate the significance of it.
03:42 So this is the first stage here that would fall off after you...
03:46 From here on down, that would come off.
03:48 That's separated because the engines for the Saturn 1B, the service module engines
03:54 are inside right here, and so that was very important for us in orbit.
03:58 When you got off the elevator and started to cross this crosswalk here, we knew
04:05 we were going to get in the spacecraft and there was a good chance we were going to
04:07 get launched.
04:08 So this is just a command module mock-up, but it's the right size.
04:19 It is, for all intents and purposes, the vehicle.
04:25 You spent 11 days, three of you, in orbit in something the size of a large sports car
04:30 inside.
04:31 We got a little bit at each other's throat once in a while, but that's awful close.
04:36 Were you able to sleep in space very well?
04:39 By the third scheduled sleep period, I could sleep very well.
04:44 Zero gravity is the part you get used to.
04:47 What happens is you're about ready to go to sleep, you're inside a little bag just
04:50 to keep you from floating around.
04:51 About the time you're about ready to go to sleep, all of a sudden you're falling.
04:56 I mean, you feel like you're falling.
04:57 Just like we all do when we're dreaming.
04:59 Right, right.
05:00 So all of a sudden you're awake again.
05:05 This is the actual NASA van that took you and your Apollo 7 crewmates to the launch
05:09 pad, took all the rest of the Apollo astronauts to the launch pad.
05:12 Do you remember which seat you sat in?
05:15 I can't imagine anybody remembering things like that.
05:18 You don't?
05:19 No.
05:20 It was a way to move us to the next step.
05:22 I think all of us were probably focused on one thing only.
05:26 It says, "Don't screw up."
05:28 In an incredible stroke of luck, we managed to catch one of NASA's crawler transporters
05:34 out and moving.
05:36 Even Walt has never seen this thing in action.
05:38 These huge rigs, which weigh six million pounds, carried the Apollo rockets from the vertical
05:45 assembly building to the launch pad.
05:47 And given that there are only two of them, there's a 50% chance that this ferry crawler
05:53 carried Walt's Apollo 7 rocket to its pad.
05:56 So what was it like when you finally got out here on launch day?
05:59 Well, you get out there on launch day and you're focused on getting out of the trailer,
06:04 getting in the elevator, up and into the spacecraft.
06:08 And all you want every step along the way is things to go smoothly.
06:12 But for you, all your years of training, all the tenseness of getting into the program,
06:16 it's about to pay off.
06:17 Yeah, as a matter of fact, it was three days shy of five years after I had become an astronaut.
06:24 And all of that was involved in training of one kind or another.
06:29 Okay Art, I've shown you everything that I used to do.
06:33 Now what are you going to show me?
06:34 Well, Walt, I have the favorite ride of America's astronauts.
06:38 I've got the Chevrolet Corvette.
06:39 In fact, I've got the all-new 2014 C7 Corvette.
06:43 How would you like to drive this bad boy?
06:51 I'd like to try it.
06:52 I'll bet you would.
06:53 Let's do it.
06:56 As if today hadn't already been epic enough, that evening we walk out to the beach in front
07:01 of our hotel just in time to watch the launch from Kennedy of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.
07:08 Yep, some days are just better than others.
07:11 So, Walt, take me back in time.
07:18 It's the early 1960s.
07:19 Here you are, you're a Marine fighter pilot, and suddenly you decide, "I want to be a NASA
07:26 astronaut."
07:27 What was that like?
07:29 Well, as a pilot, of course, I always wanted to fly higher, farther, and faster.
07:35 But I'll never forget on May 5, 1961, I was driving over the Santa Monica Mountains to
07:45 where I worked at the Rand Corporation, a little before seven, and listening to Alan
07:50 Shepard's launch.
07:51 The first American in space.
07:52 And after I listened to that, listened to the liftoff, that was the time that in my
07:59 heart I decided, you know, I am going to do that if at all possible.
08:04 And months later, I ended up being one of the 14 they ended up selecting.
08:09 How many people applied for your most 14 places?
08:12 Well, there were 770 qualified applicants, and some pretty good guys didn't make it,
08:18 incidentally, for a variety of reasons.
08:20 So I really felt fortunate that I was one of the 14.
08:23 And so your 14 joined the first two astronaut groups, so there's a total of 30 astronauts
08:29 now.
08:30 And several years later, 1968, you joined the three-man crew of Apollo 7, the first
08:35 Apollo flight to liftoff.
08:38 Well, there were 30 of us when we first reported down there, 30 of us total.
08:44 It wasn't too long before we started losing a couple, lost them in some airplane crashes.
08:49 Before long, we were down 27 or 26.
08:53 And eventually, I was placed on actually the prime crew for a flight that never went.
08:59 It was called Apollo 2.
09:00 And we backed up Apollo 1 when they died in the fire on the pad.
09:05 We inherited the first mission, which they then re-numbered, and we ended up being Apollo
09:09 7, the first flight in Apollo.
09:12 Well, Walt, before you became an astronaut, you've always been into sports cars, but you
09:17 were kind of into foreign sports cars.
09:19 Once you joined the astronauts, though, they're all Corvette crazies, weren't they?
09:22 And you became one yourself.
09:24 One of the reasons that I became crazy was I found out that through a dealership down
09:31 in Melbourne, Florida, that I could get a very special deal with Corvette at the time
09:38 so I could afford it.
09:40 I couldn't afford it before.
09:42 So I got my first one.
09:44 It was a 1964 C2, I think it was at the time.
09:48 I liked it a lot, but after the good deal ran out, I ended up going back and forth to
09:53 some other cars, too.
09:54 So over the years, I've had a variety of different cars, including Corvettes.
10:00 And then after going through all these cars, I switched back to Corvettes again in 2005.
10:07 It's like the car is getting better and better, and it's reasonably priced.
10:12 Really a wonderful automobile for the price you pay for it.
10:16 Yeah.
10:17 Ah, New Orleans.
10:20 Last time we came here, we partied hard and woke up feeling like death.
10:25 This time, the same thing, but we had an Apollo astronaut with us.
10:31 But there are NASA sites here, too.
10:34 So Walt and I boarded a boat and hit the water in search of the Michoud Rocket Facility,
10:38 which in the 1960s and early 1970s constructed the huge first stages of Apollo's Saturn
10:45 I and Saturn V launch vehicles.
10:47 Well, Walt, we can't see a whole lot from here, but this is the vertical assembly building
10:51 where they made the first stage?
10:53 They put it upright?
10:54 This is where they stacked them up and got everything just right.
10:57 And then they would have to take them horizontal and get them out here so they could put them
11:02 on a barge and go as much as possible in the passage all the way down to Cocoa Beach.
11:07 So that is what we would call a vertical assembly building.
11:12 And then that piece would make it to the vertical assembly building that we saw at Kennedy Space
11:17 Center.
11:18 It would be just the first stage?
11:19 Yeah, just put together with the other stages and we would have a finished rocket.
11:32 Casual cruising around New Orleans is a never-ending stream of fascinating sights.
11:38 A so-called steamboat house near the Mississippi River, the last battleground from the War
11:43 of 1812.
11:45 Brady's funky one-stop food store.
11:48 And then the front entrance to the Michoud rocket plant.
11:55 You can't believe how big the first stage of a Saturn V rocket is until you've seen
12:00 it in person.
12:05 Next stop, the Johnson Space Center in Houston, about 350 miles from New Orleans.
12:11 Before I visit the home of Mission Control, though, I drop by the house of good friend
12:16 Bruce, a Houston resident, Corvette crazy, and owner of some of the Choices vintage vets
12:22 and auto memorabilia you'll ever see.
12:25 Why don't you take me through what you've got out here today?
12:28 Sure, yeah.
12:29 This is a '61.
12:30 It's a second generation Corvette.
12:32 It's a 283 cubic inch engine, two four barrels, 245 horse.
12:38 '63, that's one of the crown jewels of collectible Corvettes.
12:43 It's the first year of the Stingray body style, and it has a split window in the back.
12:47 Which makes this a real collector's car.
12:49 Now tell me about this monster right here.
12:51 Yeah, this is the one we call the beast.
12:54 This is a '67 big block 427, 435 horse, side pipe convertible, just about devoid of options.
13:04 No one wanted to rob the rear wheels of power back in '67.
13:08 And to have the sister to this one, this is the opposite.
13:11 It's a small block V8, 327, 350 horse, power steering, power brakes, factory air.
13:19 And this is the one that my wife particularly likes.
13:22 And this is a third generation Corvette.
13:24 It's a 350 cubic inch small block.
13:28 It had the LT1 option group.
13:30 Didn't you tell me this is original paint on this car?
13:32 This is an original paint car, original interior car.
13:35 Unreal.
13:36 And then of course Danny, you brought your spectacular Astrovette.
13:39 You know this car is too valuable to race.
13:42 But I've kind of reserved some runway time at Ellington Air Force Base.
13:45 Would you bring this out there?
13:47 Oh yeah.
13:48 And Bruce, your 427, I know they're rated at 435, it's probably making well north of
13:54 500 I'm betting.
13:55 Would you like to drag race that against my C7?
13:57 I think that could be arranged.
14:00 Bruce trusts his precious cars to only one man, Ray Ryszynski, who just might be the
14:14 best Corvette mechanic in the entire US of A.
14:31 Well Ray is one hell of a driver, and he wasn't babying that big block.
14:53 But even with all that horsepower, he had to deal with 60's era tires, finicky clutch,
14:58 and a suspension that darts around over every crack in the pavement.
15:02 In comparison, my C7 made my runs a walk in the park.
15:08 Danny, this beautiful '69 you've owned since 1971, this is Alan Bean's personal Corvette.
15:15 He was the lunar module pilot on Apollo 12, the fourth human to walk on the moon.
15:20 What does it feel like to own a piece of astronaut history like this?
15:23 I love owning a piece of history.
15:26 And it's opened so many doors, it's like meeting astronauts like we have again today, and getting
15:31 to tour NASA, meet a lot of people, and it's got a better life than I do.
15:37 The car tends to go a lot of places.
15:40 And you actually rescued it, it was kind of lost to obscurity for a while, and a couple
15:45 years after Alan Bean was done with it, you found it.
15:47 I bought it from General Motors through GMAC, and I did find it on the lot, and I recognized
15:53 it from a Life Magazine article.
15:56 I feel very blessed to have it.
15:58 The Apollo 12 crew had three matching Corvettes.
16:01 This was Bean's, and then the other two guys had their own, and the other two are gone.
16:06 We haven't been able to find them.
16:07 Of course they could be in a barn somewhere.
16:09 They could be, but you never know.
16:11 But in the meantime, what is a car like this worth?
16:13 It must be astronomical.
16:14 I don't know.
16:15 I hear it's seven figures.
16:18 Probably north of two million, I'm guessing.
16:21 Keep to yourself.
16:22 I've heard that before.
16:23 Now, moving on, Walt, you own this 2005 Corvette.
16:27 You owned a '64 originally.
16:29 Had some other Corvettes in your career, but you've driven both these now back to back.
16:34 What do you think of the '14?
16:35 How do you compare the two?
16:36 Well, it's kind of like my life.
16:40 We've both evolved over the years.
16:42 I was excited about my '64 because of the big V8 engine.
16:47 I loved the power, and so that's where I started off in Corvettes.
16:52 The 2005, better in many, many ways.
16:56 I was looking forward to the 2014, the C7 here now.
17:00 Now that I've had a chance to drive it, and we've done cross-country on it, I have to
17:04 tell you, in every aspect, it exceeded what I expected out of it.
17:10 I have not found one thing that I could complain or say negative about it.
17:15 The most important thing, Walt, is we convinced your beautiful wife, Dot, that she likes it
17:20 too.
17:21 That's really important.
17:22 So I see one of these in your future, huh?
17:24 Yeah.
17:25 Well, I gotta thank you both.
17:26 It's been a great Corvette afternoon.
17:27 I appreciate it.
17:29 As we're leaving Ellington, Walt spots a T-38 supersonic fighter jet.
17:33 You guys, when you're traveling around the country for your various training and setting
17:39 up systems and various meeting the manufacturers, you basically had personal use of one of these.
17:44 Well, we had 30 of them and 30 pilots most of the time.
17:48 The Corvette here, the C7, latest, greatest, well, that was the good old days.
17:55 Much faster and really made our life endurable because we had such a tough schedule all over
18:01 the country.
18:02 There were weeks when I had to spend time on both the East Coast and the West Coast.
18:06 Never could have done it if we hadn't had those.
18:10 When Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell radioed, "Houston, we've had a problem," he radioed
18:17 this place, Johnson Space Center.
18:20 JSC is the home of astronaut training, especially Building 9, which today is filled with mock-ups
18:27 of the International Space Station.
18:29 Nearby is an Orion capsule, the planned follow-up to Apollo.
18:33 Then Walt and I climb up into the cockpit of a shuttle systems trainer.
18:37 Back in my day, the command module was thought of as the most complicated piece of hardware
18:43 ever to be operated, and we had 1,800 switches and other items that we had to be able to
18:51 control and move and do.
18:52 1,800 seemed like a lot, but you can see that this is much bigger than that.
19:04 Imagine the biggest swimming pool you've ever seen, now multiplied by 10.
19:11 The Neutral Buoyancy Lab helps astronauts simulate the weightlessness of space, allowing
19:16 them to work underwater on full-size mock-ups of the International Space Station.
19:21 This place is about as James Bond as it gets, wicked cool.
19:26 As one team of divers completes their shift, I meet Stacey, who's been working at the NBL
19:31 for 15 years.
19:33 And you're just there as a safety diver, helping the astronauts out, move around?
19:37 Our main goal is to make sure that they're safe, you know, if anything was to happen,
19:40 to get them out.
19:41 But we also assist them with tools and heavy objects, and any tasks that they're on, if
19:45 they need some help, they let us know.
19:47 Great.
19:48 Well, we'll let you get back to warming up.
19:50 Good talking to you, Stacey.
19:51 Thank you, Art.
19:52 Take care.
19:53 For pure history, though, the ultimate site at JSC is the nerve center of the entire NASA
19:58 space program, Mission Control.
20:01 Three days, falling upward to the moon.
20:08 It's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
20:15 We're in the original Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center in Houston, and I'm
20:20 not embarrassed to admit I got a little choked up being in here.
20:24 This was ground zero for the glory days of NASA's manned space program.
20:29 Every mission from Gemini 4 through Apollo was orchestrated here with some of the baddest
20:34 ass engineers and specialists you can imagine, most of them in their 20s.
20:40 When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon and said, "The Eagle has landed," Charlie Duke,
20:44 from right here, said, "We copy you down, Eagle," right here.
20:49 It's an incredible place.
20:50 We copy you down, Eagle.
20:52 Those of you who watched Apollo 13, an excellent movie, you recall that it was at the flight
20:57 director's desk right here where they heard the words, "Houston, we've had a problem."
21:01 Houston, we've had a problem here.
21:02 Right here.
21:03 Say again, please.
21:04 Houston, we've had a problem.
21:10 It's amazing.
21:11 You can still smell the stale coffee and cigarettes and sweat in this place.
21:15 The stuff that went on.
21:19 Just outside the fence at JSC lies a newly constructed hangar showcasing a fully restored
21:25 original Saturn V rocket, left over when NASA canceled the last three Apollo missions.
21:31 Along one wall are pictures and profiles of the space heroes of Apollo, all friends of
21:36 Walt's, many of them now gone.
21:40 Just visiting NASA's historic sites has been a journey I'll never forget.
21:46 But doing so in the company of Apollo 7's Walt Cunningham and behind the wheel of America's
21:51 fantastic astronaut approved speed machine, well, sometimes boyhood dreams really do come
21:59 true.
22:05 Walt, after the Apollo program, the follow up program was the space shuttle.
22:08 This is the Atlantis.
22:09 Of course, that program's over.
22:11 How did you rate that program in success?
22:14 Overall, this vehicle, not this particular one, but amongst the four vehicles, they flew
22:19 135 missions and I personally believe that it was the most amazing flying machine ever
22:28 built by man.
22:29 I also think it was the safest machine ever used to put people in orbit.
22:35 They did have two accidents, of course, but those were managerial decisions that caused
22:40 that.
22:41 When they quit flying this, I think it was a huge mistake because we don't have anything
22:45 to replace it now for maybe, it might be out of 10 years before we have our own so-called
22:52 commercial space, maybe step in there and be able to do that.
22:56 But in the meantime, Russians are taking us up.
22:59 You got to get NASA back in there.
23:03 Did you ever wish you got a chance to fly one of these?
23:05 Oh, yes, yes.
23:07 But you know, it would carry so many people, they probably wouldn't ever let me command
23:12 it because I was just a Marine civilian reservist fighter pilot.
23:18 So they changed their requirements so different in there.
23:22 I'd have been the right seat co-pilot probably.
23:24 You could handle that?
23:27 Oh yeah.
23:28 I'd have done anything to fly on it.
23:30 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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