Apollo 7 lifted off from Cape Kennedy on October 11, 1968, and it was the first crewed flight of the Apollo spacecraft and the first American launch with men aboard since the fire that had killed Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee on the pad in January 1967. Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham spent eleven days in orbit testing the command module, the ship that would have to carry men to the Moon. They did not leave orbit. The Moon was nine weeks behind them, and the flight had to work first.
The fire forced a rebuild. The command module of 1967 was sealed with an atmosphere of pure oxygen at pressure, the hatch opened inward and the wiring ran in bundles that shorted, and the three men inside could not get out. After the accident the hatch was made to open outward in seconds, the materials were made fire-resistant and the cabin ran on a mixed atmosphere at launch. Apollo 7 was the first flight of the redesigned ship, and NASA was under pressure from a president's deadline, because Kennedy had promised a landing before 1970 and it was already the autumn of 1968.
The flight itself was mostly clean. The crew fired the service module engine, the one that would brake the ship into lunar orbit, and reported afterwards that the spacecraft was sound. The crew's complaints were the story that travelled: all three caught colds, the food was poor and the sleep schedule was punishing, and Schirra, the commander, argued openly with the ground. None of the three flew in space again.
The mission cleared the way. NASA judged the spacecraft ready, and in December 1968 Apollo 8 went to the Moon and orbited it with three men aboard on Christmas Eve, the first humans to leave earth's gravity. Apollo 7 is the step between the fire and the Moon that nobody watches now, but without it there was no programme to fly on.