During an evening test at Cape Kennedy on this day in 1967 something went terribly wrong in the
Apollo 1 capsule. Years of shoddy engineering and lowest bids combined to create a situation in which a spark coming from frayed wiring in a pressurized pure oxygen environment led to a devastating fire that killed all three primary crew members: Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Edward White.
President Lyndon Johnson was attending a party at the White House when this note was passed to him:
Gus Grissom was one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts and was the second American to fly in space. He also flew in the Gemini program.
Ed White was the first American to walk in space. Roger Chaffee was a rookie preparing for his first space flight.
Because of this accident the entire space program had to refocus its efforts, improve the engineering and design, and when the first Apollo flight finally went into space (designated Apollo 7) the machines were ready.
You can read more about the
Apollo 1 accident on Wikipedia.
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1 comment:
In 1965 I remember coming home from school, and I was surprised to find my dad was home early. He told me to come in the house and meet the "famous astronaut, Gus Grissom." I remember a quiet man, not real tall, who just looked down with this "aw shucks" look on his face; a really nice guy.
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