Firing Room - Area A
Visitors Gallery, Operations Management Room, and Area A
The vast majority of photos I have seen of the Apollo-era Firing Rooms were taken from the vantage point of the Visitors Gallery, the Operations Management Room, or the back of Area A.
The photos taken from this area highlighted the key management personnel and VIPs (von Braun, George Low, etc.) but severely limited the view of the rest of the Firing Room.
Most of the consoles in this area provided summary-level information that was necessary for oversight and supervision of the test and launch process. In period photos of this area, you will see a plethora of panels for monitoring the various communications loops between the flight controllers.
Operations
Management
Room
Visitors
Gallery
The Apollo Firing Rooms were divided into Areas (A through F), with lettered Rows and numbered Console locations. This page focuses on the Area that is best documented by period photographs - Area A.
EXAMPLE: Locating the Test Supervisor’s console
One easily-identifiable console in Area A contained both the COUNT CONTROL and TEST SUPERVISOR panels.
COUNT CONTROL panel, from the KSC Saturn V Visitors Center
TEST SUPERVISOR panel (Scott Unterberg collection)
Chuck Henschel, Lead Test Supervisor, starting the Apollo 14 countdown clock. Counting from the far end of the row of consoles, this console is in the 8th position from the right. Note that the COUNT CONTROL panel in this photo is slightly different than the panel that was photographed at the Saturn V Visitors Center. On the full-resolution version of this photo, the panel names are legible, confirming the identification of the panels. (photo courtesy Bill Sawchuck)
Firing Room 1 in January 1967. The console in question is in the bottom center of the picture. Area B of the Firing Room starts where the center aisle begins, so this panel is in the third row from the end of Area A, making it Area A Row B.
Pinpointing the location
Now that we know that this console was in Area A, Row B, and was the 8th panel from the right, we refer back to the layout diagram and count backward from the last console in the row, and pinpoint its location as Area A, Row B, console number 5.
It is interesting to note that in photos of the Firing Rooms from Apollo 17 and ASTP, this console was one position farther to the left (console 4).