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Blue Dot 135: Apollo 9

NASA

In our third installment of Blue Dot's look back at Project Apollo for the 50th anniversaries of the missions, we examine perhaps the most overlooked of all, Apollo 9. Astronaut Rusty Schweickart, Apollo 9 Lunar Module Pilot, joins Dave to talk about the ambitious test flight that paved the way for Neil Armstrong's one small step, just over four months later.

Along with Commander Jim McDivitt and Command Module Pilot Dave Scott, Schweickart helped the crew test the lunar module in its maiden voyage into space, the first rendezvous and docking of the two Apollo spacecraft and the first test of the spacesuits that would be worn by the moonwalkers.

Schweickart suffered from an intense bout of space sickness that nearly curtailed much of the mission's objectives but recovered to have an amazing few minutes alone outside the spacecraft orbiting the Earth with nothing to do but contemplate his place in the vastness of space and time.

Dave Schlom is the longtime host and creator of Blue Dot. From surfing to Voyager in interstellar space, rock guitar to orcas in our imperiled oceans, the topics on Blue Dot are as varied as the host’s interests and connections -- which are pretty limitless! An internationally respected space history journalist, Dave is also deeply fascinated by all aspects of the grand workings of nature’s awesome machinery on scales ranging from galactic to subatomic. And topics take in all aspects of the arts and sciences.