Apollo 7 Flown Heatshield Ablator Bottom Plug 1 of 10

Here is a 1968 vintage resin display of a complete bottom heatshield plug from the Apollo 7 command module, which was the first manned mission of an Apollo spacecraft. The mission was flown by Wally Schirra, Walt Cunningham and Don Eisle and the flight was such an overwhelming success, that it gave NASA the confidence to fly the next mission, Apollo 8, to orbit the moon, the following Christmas.

These full bottom heatshield plugs were used to cover over the bolts that attached the heatshield to the bottom of the command module and there were only 10 of these displays made up for VIP's. It is one of the rarest of all the flown resin presentations made up by North American Aviation.