is unfortunately remembered in many circles as the first NASA spaceflight in which the crew all-but mutinied against Mission Control in Houston.
Commander Wally Schirra, seen here in an image captured during the ninth day of the October 1968 flight, was suffering from a bad cold and had "had it up to here" with changes and additions to the timeline being forced on he and his crew by flight controllers. Schirra's anger vented during a few choice exchanges with Mission Control that were publicly broadcast.
Schirra particularly didn't like the inclusion of a television camera onboard the spacecraft and placed it low on his list of things to do. When Mission Control loaded up the crew with unplanned tests and experiments, he balked and said there would be no television. Later in the mission he relented and he and his crew, Walt Cunningham and Donn Eisele, beamed down several memorable shows from "the lovely Apollo room, high atop everything."
It was a trying time for Mission Control's engineers and managers who were more comfortable dealing with a technical failure than a hot-headed commander. But it was good training for troubles yet to come.
Adding to the tension surrounding Apollo 7: It was the critical first manned flight of an Apollo spacecraft following the disastrous 1967
