On This Date-Sydney Taylor

On this date in history, October 11 1968, NASA launched the first three-man space mission from what was then known as Cape Kennedy Air Force Station. It was the first mission in the United States' Apollo Program to carry a crew into space and the first American space flight to carry astronauts into low Earth orbit after a cabin fire killed the crew of Apollo 1. The trip was an 11 day flight with the first live TV broadcast from an American spacecraft. The crew consisted of Commander Walter M. Schirra, Command Module Pilot Donn F. Eisele, and Lunar Module Pilot R. Walter Cunningham. The mission was a complete technical success, though it would be the last space flight for all of its crew members after it landed in the Atlantic Ocean on October 22. The mission resulted in giving NASAL the confidence to launch Apollo 8 around the moon a few months later.