Ed White rides a life raft in the foreground, Chaffee sits in the hatch of the model spacecraft, and Grissom waits inside the spacecraft. Some wires even appeared frayed. We were sitting at the end of the arrow so we got the glory, but those other people had the same attitude we didif this mission fails it wont be because of me.. I don't agree that the inner pressure hull should be left out. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Determination - The crew was exposed to a lethal atmosphere when the first suit was breached. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) The Apollo program changed forever on Jan. 27, 1967, when a flash fire swept. The crew of Apollo 1: Veteran astronaut Gus Grissom (left), first American spacewalker Ed White, and rookie Roger Chaffee. A community for asking whether programs, products, or services are legitimate. At that moment, the team in the white room sprung into action. The crew struggled to get out. The changes made to the Apollo Command Module as a result of the tragedy resulted in a highly reliable craft which, with the exception of Apollo 13, helped make the complex and . Read our affiliate link policy. You're right about last part: those suits don't look like they've been through the hell that took place inside the Apollo 1 command module. Meanwhile, Don Babbitt, the pad leader for North American Aviationthe company that made the Apollo spacecraftmoved to pick up the phone and call for help. In this thread, several people who saw the suits post-fire and would be in a position to dispute the photos if they were not accurate did not do so, so I take that to mean the photos are probably genuine. I will report the results back here unless someone here beats me to it! CNMN Collection "I have a personal feeling that, without their loss in 1967, we might not have gotten to the moon, literally, because what we learned from that accident made a safer program," he told me. I attempted to discuss with NASA a method of drying the suits out by using a centrifuge, but they were not interested and told me to mind my own business. A NASA review board found a stray spark (probably from damaged wires near Grissom's couch) started the fire in the pure oxygen environment. Heres how it works. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. About the skull, I'm not sure It's reflected light. However, I do find myself doubting that the hoses acted as blow torches, as it appears from photos that the hoses were largely un-burned. Posts: 851From: Celina, OhioRegistered: Feb 2000. Years later they were retrieved, but the photos were heavily damaged. The flag draped coffin of Astronaut Virgil I. Grissom is escorted at Arlington Cemetery, Va., by his fellow astronauts, following the Apollo 1 fire that claimed his life. As a matter of fact Ed White's handprint can clearly be seen permanently etched into the hatch. Then there was the hatch itself: designed to open inward (nearly impossible to do if the cabin pressure increases), and three-layered, making it a slow, burdensome process to open, and delaying the rescue efforts. He had not been trained on how to get the hatches off, but he tried.". The USS Arizona is on display, so why not the complete Apollo 1 spacecraft? Join the Ars Orbital Transmission mailing list to get weekly updates delivered to your inbox. While Grissom complained long and loud behind the scenes about many of the problems with his spacecraft, he likely tolerated the bad wiring because he, NASA, and its contractors were at that time firmly in the grip of a deadly malady called Go Fever, wrote George Leopold in his recently published book on Grissoms life, Calculated Risk. College Park contains a good deal more than just NACA and Apollo 1 and Challenger. First it would be displayed where the accident happened, secondly it would be out of reach of collectors with sticky fingers, and thirdly it would rid Langley of the burden while in reality it would still be stored, only at KSC. Henry served in the Navy for 15 years, followed by a five-year stint in the Air Force, before retiring from service. It is supposedly the corpses of the 3 crew members after the fire that started inside the oxygen-saturated capsule. The Soviets were big on publishing photos of pilots that gave their lives for the space program. As a backup crew member for the initial Apollo mission, Cunningham recalled clambering into the first Apollo capsule on Jan. 26, 1967 for some pre-flight work. Any chance of finding its origin? Apollo 1 tragedy. All rights reserved. After years of war tours, Henry was in a stopover in Detroit, sometime around 1943. They do seem consistent with the way the fire spread tho: it started under Grissom's (on the right) seat and on those images the suits are mainly burned in the lower area. This blocked about half of the hatch opening, restricting our entry into the craft until we could get the hatch to finish falling. In his biography Forever Young, A Life of Adventure in Air and Space, the Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle veteran John Young recounted the unfortunate differences in wiring between the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft. NASA Apollo Mission Apollo-1-- Investigation Apollo 204 Review Board Report The Baron Report Baron's Testimony Before Congress The Phillips Report Borman's Testimony Before Congress Borman Testimony to the House House Testimony Part 1 House Testimony Part 2 Borman Testimony to the Senate Senate Testimony Part 1 Senate Testimony Part 2 Despite the best efforts of the ground crew, the three men inside perished. I will be back there in the fall, and I'm going to request the file myself just to see if they are actually in there or whether they are still restricted, as I really hope they are. Happier days: in June 1966, the Apollo 1 crew practices water egress procedures with a full scale boilerplate model of the spacecraft. This is the same building that the bodies of the Apollo 1 crew members were first transported to after the fire and examined, each in a separate unit. His suit is also the most damaged. "He would talk with a fake lisp to try to make people feel sorry for him to sell more peanuts," my father, his oldest son Randy, told me recently. The early astronauts trusted that they could handle any situation that came their way. Now it is entirely possible since the suits melted and were glued or cemented to the CM metal that when the bodies were removed that caused additional damages to the suits. The Sun website is regulated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), Our journalists strive for accuracy but on occasion we make mistakes. Apollo 1, initially designated AS-204, was the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, the American undertaking to land the first man on the Moon. 55 TheNightBench 6 yr. ago The blacked out passage at the top connected the spacecraft, white room, and tower. The Apollo 1 crew two days before the fire. He pulled off his jacket to offer to another man to cover his face. Eight months and three missions later, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon. From the time of the first announcement of fire to the pressure vessel blowing out, a mere 18 seconds elapsed: just enough time for Henry to ascend up the tower. Further,anexhibit honoring the Apollo 1 crew was opened at the Kennedy Space Center in 2017,displaying the hatchesthat were on the spacecraft. Image: NASA, "What I remember is that they were really pushing people, and dad was working a lot of overtime," Ron Rogers, my uncle and Henry's youngest son, told me. Most material from the late 80's and older is held at the archives, either in . As NASA reports, on January 27, 1967, a fire during a preflight test for the Apollo 1 mission took the lives of astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee. Some eight seconds later, Grissom could be heard shouting. Photos were taken of the bodies, but I couldn't find anything indicating more were taken after they were removed from the Command Module. Henry Rogers, with wife Doreen and sons Randy and Tim (in arms), circa 1951. In it he spoke about the Apollo 1 fire and mentioned that during the fire one of the crews oxygen hoses had burnt through and "whipped" around the cockpit "like an acetylene torch" and had "nearly beheaded one of . My guess is that no one would want the outer shell for scrap since all the ablator would have to be removed - a seemingly expensive procedure compared to the value of the metal. Concerning the bones I think I can see a couple tibia bones on the lower right of the middle pic but that's about all. Same goes with the photographs and black channel tapes that were eventually retrieved by the National Archives. In some places it was hot enough to melt stainless steel, and yet in other places blue velcro (Grissom's and Chaffee's side) was not damaged at all. Those are not available to researchers. Also, the center and left-hand suits, while obviously fire-damaged, are in better condition than I would expect the Apollo suits to be in given the descriptions provided of what happened to the astronauts. Shouting through the noise, Grissom vented: "How are we going to get to the moon if we can't talk between two or three buildings? Grissom's coffin. The suits are in "poor" condition thanks to NASA. At this point, Gleaves, Babbitt, Clemmonsas well as L. D. Reece and Jerry W. Hawkins, two other men who had been working in the white roomhad already been trying to fight the flames and pull the astronauts out to safety. As a formal investigation into the fire would conclude, the pressure vessel on the spacecraft had ruptured, and the fire exploded onto the swing arm, blasting Gleaves back against the door and flooding the roomand the menwith fresh flames and thick smoke. A faulty electrical switch ignited the pure oxygen environment. Decades later, NASA recalls the Apollo 1 incident every January in an annualDay of Remembrance. At this point, the Apollo program was in its sixth year. For the astronauts, if they complained too loudly, there was also the threat of getting pulled off the mission. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. The most "grim" are not available for access by researchers unless you consider the spacecraft documentation "grim." Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Press J to jump to the feed. It was even discussed years/decades ago about the possibility of placing Apollo 1 inside 34's blockhouse, under the pedestal at the pad, or somewhere nearby. I am assuming you're speaking of photos of the bodies, both in place and in autopsy. THE doomed Apollo 1 crew's chilling last moments have been revealed by a renowned flight director who was listening in from Mission Control. Happier days: in June 1966, the Apollo 1 crew practices water egress procedures with a full scale boilerplate model of the spacecraft. Apollo 1 Tragedy BREVARD COUNTY CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA - On Jan. 27, 1967, tragedy struck on the launch pad at Cape Kennedy during a preflight test for Apollo 204 (AS-204). 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