The crew of Apollo 1. Left to right, Lieutenant Colonel Virgil I. Grissom, United States Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel Edward H. White II, United States Air Force, and Lieutenant Commander Roger B. Chaffee, United States Navy. (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
27 January 1967: During a “plugs out” test of the Apollo 1 Command Module, two weeks ahead of the scheduled launch of the Apollo/Saturn 1B AS-204—the first manned Apollo Program space flight—a fire broke out in the pressurized pure oxygen environment of the capsule and rapidly involved the entire interior.
The pressure rapidly built to 29 pounds per square inch (200 kPa) and 17 seconds later, at 23:31:19.4 UTC, the capsule ruptured.
The three astronauts, Lieutenant Colonel Virgil I. Grissom, United States Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel Edward H. White II, United States Air Force, and Lieutenant Commander Roger B. Chaffee, United States Navy, were killed.
AD ASTRA PER ASPERA
NASA has a detailed summary of the accident and investigation at:
…the Apollo Command Module was re-thought, and re-made in very little time: some faulty procedures endured and endangered Apollo 13. Being a space pioneer is dangerous.
As a young cadet in 1960, I met several Mercury-7 astronauts during a training mission at the Morehead Planetarium, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC. In the group was (than) Cpt Gus Grissom-intelligent yet very friendly-a good guy. I followed his career as someone keeps track of a Major League player. Years later, while in SEA, several days after this accident, I heard about it. His loss to me was as personally devastating as anything else in this timeframe.
Many times I have wondered, if not this accident, would he have been the first on the moon/ He certainly was worthy.
God Bless ‘Gus,Gus’
dj
…the Apollo Command Module was re-thought, and re-made in very little time: some faulty procedures endured and endangered Apollo 13. Being a space pioneer is dangerous.
As a young cadet in 1960, I met several Mercury-7 astronauts during a training mission at the Morehead Planetarium, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC. In the group was (than) Cpt Gus Grissom-intelligent yet very friendly-a good guy. I followed his career as someone keeps track of a Major League player. Years later, while in SEA, several days after this accident, I heard about it. His loss to me was as personally devastating as anything else in this timeframe.
Many times I have wondered, if not this accident, would he have been the first on the moon/ He certainly was worthy.
God Bless ‘Gus,Gus’
dj