Liftoff from the tower

A camera mounted atop the mobile launch tower captured this vivid image of the liftoff. Collins said in a NASA account from the 1970s that the rocket was "climbing like a dingbat"--less than three hours after liftoff, the astronauts were at 1,200 miles altitude, and at one point in the early going they were traveling at 35,579 feet per second, he said, "more than enough to escape from the Earth's gravitational field."