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Jim Lovell first flew aboard Gemini 7 wich lasted a record two weeks and conducted the first space rendezvous. His next mission was as Commander of Gemini 12 which was the final Gemini mission and gave him the record for the most time space in space by any human. His next mission was Apollo 8, the first time any humans had left the vicinity of the Earth and travelled to another heavenly body. His final mission was as Commander of Apollo 13, a triumph of teamwork over adversity considered to be NASA's greatest hour.
Gene Cernan first flew aboard Gemini 9 and performed a highly risky EVA, his next flight was as Lunar Module Pilot aboard Apollo 10, which flew the Lunar Module to within a few miles of the lunar surface in preparation of the Apollo 11 mission. His final mission was as Commander of Apollo 17, when he became the last person to leave his footprints on the surface of the moon.
The spacecraft that took astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon in July 1969, on exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
Here's even more detail, showing the complex linkage system needed to manipulate multiple dogs from a single handle.
Carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the Moon and back during their historic Apollo 11 voyage in July 1969. Detailed here is the ablative heat shield.
Fernbank Science Center
Before you is the Command Module of the Apollo 6. If you look under the capsule you will see a series of holes. These holes were drilled to investigate how the heat shield held up after this capsule re-entered the Earth's atmosphere.
The Apollo 6 mission provided a second rehearsal for launching the massive Saturn V rocket. Scientists and engineers were testing the "staging" of a giant rocket to be sure each section would work properly. An important mission objective was to check out all systems before sending astronauts into space. The vehicle carried a full payload, including a mock-up lunar module, and was to test the capsule's heat shield to see if it could withstand re-entry speeds.
Initially, the launch seemed to be fine. But approximately two minutes into the flight, the first stage's five F-1 engines developed serious thrust fluctuations that caused the rocket to bounce like a pogo stick for 30 seconds. These oscillations were so intense that an airborne chase plane's cameras recorded pieces of the adapter stage (housing the lunar module) falling off of the vehicle. Such low-frequency vibrations (known as "pogo effect") exceeded the engineering/safety design criteria of the Apollo 6 Command Module. Had astronauts been onboard the spacecraft, the mission would have been aborted by jettisoning the capsule away from the failing rocket.
Although the oscillations stopped once the first stage was discarded, the vehicles second stage performance was also less than perfect. Two of the stage's five J-2 engines failed, causing the remaining three engines to burn for a longer period of time than planned. As a result, the second stage ran out of fuel before reaching the desired 100 mile circular orbit.
To compensate the Saturn's third stage burned longer and placed the spacecraft into an unplanned 110 by 230 mile elliptical orbit. NASA engineers left Apollo 6 in this "parking orbit for two revolutions around the Earth to assess the situation and perform various system checks. When flight controllers attempted to fire the third stage again, to simulate the flight to the Moon, the J-2 engine failed to restart.
The issues with the Saturn V's three stages altered the mission, and it was decided that after separation from the third stage, the Service Module's engine would burn for seven minutes, pushing the Apollo 6 capsule to an altitude of almost 14,000 miles. At such an altitude, enough re-entry speed could then be acquired to simulate an Apollo spacecraft returning from the Moon. The capsule's heat shield withstood the fireball created by a 22,000 mile per hour plunge into the Earth's atmosphere. Apollo 6 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, completing its 10 hour perilous space odyssey, and was recovered by the crew of the U.S.S. Okinawa.
The lunar module adapter. The manned command spacecraft would detach and pull the lunar lander out from this.
The Apollo Command Module from the Skylab 3 mission (which was the second crewed flight to the Skylab space station) located at the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, Ohio.
Apollo 13 was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and would have been the third Moon landing. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module exploded two days into the mission, disabling its electrical and life-support system. The crew, supported by backup systems on the Apollo Lunar Module, instead looped around the Moon in a circumlunar trajectory and returned safely to Earth on April 17. The mission was commanded by Jim Lovell, with Jack Swigert as command module pilot and Fred Haise as Lunar Module pilot. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13
Public domain image of the Apollo 13 insignia by NASA via Wikimedia Commons w.wiki/Fh3Z
They must have been so glad to get out of that door... Apollo 13's Command Module. Day trip to Kennedy Space Center. Ref: D817-132
No - not an obscure reference to the early 2000s TV series "Lost", but more importantly, this is the hatch to the Apollo 15 command module - on display at the Museum of the Air Force.
4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42
Charlie Duke was the Apollo 16 Lunar Module Pilot, and became the 10th man to walk on the moon. (and he has a great taste in clothes !)
The Virginia Air and Space center Museum in Hampton Roads, Virginia. This museum contains the original Apollo 12 command module, along with famous historic airplanes , bombers and jet fighter planes.
Fred Haise was the Lunar Module Pilot aboard Apollo 13, he also test flew the space shuttle "Enterprise"
Thomas K. Mattingly II, command module pilot on the Apollo 16 mission in April 1972, wore this suit on a spacewalk to collect film from outside the spacecraft.
... and then, you know, you've got the actual real command module from the Apollo 15 lunar mission just sort of sitting there rusting gently, and I think my brain couldn't comprehend that or something, because I only took the one picture. What was I thinking? COMMAND MODULE!
Tom Stafford first flew aboard Gemini 6A which performed the first rendezvous in space with Gemini 7, his next mission was as Commander of Gemini 9, after that he commanded Apollo 10 which was the first flight of a lunar module in lunar orbit. His final flight was as Commander of the Amaerican hald of the Apollo / Soyuz mission, which was the first docking of American and Russian spacecraft in history.
I'm wearing my educator's lab coat, photographing the CM in bright sunlight. Standing next to me is Julie Oliver, a photographer from the Ottawa Citizen. (Photo courtesy Brian McCullough)
photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid
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Apollo 15 Command Module "Endeavor"
USAF Museum
Dayton, OH
www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Shee...