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. 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. And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com. "As he turned, there was a venting sound, a sort of WHOOOOSH!, followed by what seemed to Babbitt to be a sheet of flame shooting from the spacecraft and arching over his head, charring the papers on his desk," Catherine Bly Cox and Charles A. Murray recount in their seminal history on the Apollo program, Apollo: Race to the Moon. Knowing full well the premium on weight in a spacecraft launched from Earth to the Moon in a single stack, managers looked for every opportunity to trim mass from the capsule and three-stage rocket. After inspection of the craft Nasa concluded that the fire broke out under astronautGus Grissom's seat. Same goes with the photographs and black channel tapes that were eventually retrieved by the National Archives. In the view of many of these astronauts, theApollo command modulejust wasn't ready yet. McDonnell Aircraft had won NASA contracts to construct the Mercury and Gemini capsules, but the Apollo award went to North American Aviation. For the time being I consider it's fake, but if it is then I'd like to find who created it and for what purpose. 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 . The mission was to be the first crewed flight of Apollo, and was scheduled to launch Feb. 21, 1967. "I'm going to hang it on that spacecraft," he answered as he kissed her goodbye. Jim Gleaves, the lead technician, ran towards the spacecraft to try to open the hatch and get the crew out. Fifty years ago, Henry Rogers stepped off an elevator into an inferno. Good find, that's pretty interesting. Posts: 2458From: U.K.Registered: Jul 2009. They were never hermetically sealed like the interior spacecraft components were. One thing in particular that caught my attention was the obvious pathway of the fire and the vast difference in temperature ranges, and extent of damage. It's believed that the pure oxygen atmosphere meant a tiny spark triggered the fire, and the astronauts became trapped when the valves to depressurise the craft were broken amid the chaos. Credits: NASA Apollo 1 Tragedy Jan. 27, 1967, tragedy struck on the launch pad at Cape Kennedy during a preflight test for Apollo 204 (AS-204). Moreover, both of his ears were bleeding and his face and scrotum were lacerated. Earlier Mercury and Gemini flights had been the first steps toward that goal, testing how humans behaved in space and how to do technical spacecraft procedures such as rendezvous. Afire famously broke out while the astronauts were sitting on the launchpad, waiting fora microphone glitch to be fixed. The team had spent the day conducting a standard last check of all the systems called a "plugs out" test. The aftermath of the grisly accident found America questioning its previously infallible space program, which since the late 1950s had chased, caught, and surpassed the Soviet Union in the race to the Moon. I don't think the Apollo Command Module would even fit inside the main doors of the blockhouse (I'll have to recheck on that along with the service entry area of the control center), as I would hate to see it disassembled in pieces just to accomplish such a feat. profile | register | preferences | faq | search. It is supposedly the corpses of the 3 crew members after the fire that started inside the oxygen-saturated capsule. The Apollo original film is still in Houston. America honored the fallen heroes in funerals with full military honors. NASA administrators sit at the witness table before the Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Services, chaired by Senator Clinton P. Anderson, on the Apollo 1 (Apollo 204) accident. Decades later, NASA recalls the Apollo 1 incident every January in an annualDay of Remembrance. Ultimate Bulletin Board 5.47a. Then, in March of 1965, the first Gemini crewed mission launched, beginninga series of tests in low Earth orbit that would prove the technologies needed to go to the Moon. A great deal of progress had been made since the first manned spaceflight programs, Gemini and Mercury. Your California Privacy Rights | Do Not Sell My Personal Information But it was indeed a sad loss when the disaster occurred. The Apollo program changed forever on Jan. 27, 1967, when a flash fire swept through the Apollo 1 command module during a launch rehearsal test. It's nowhere to be found on any official website or any serious news articles. It was difficult for mission control to make out what the crew was saying inside the shuttle, and vice versa, leading Grissom to famously ponder after hours of static: "how are we going to get to the moon if we can't talk between two or three buildings?". The USS Arizona is on display, so why not the complete Apollo 1 spacecraft? To reach it, you had to take an elevator up 200 feet to level A8, where an open air platform connected the control tower to the white room. It would take more than 18 months of delays and extensive redesigns before NASA sent any men into space. Well it's hard to really hard to distinguish anything in those pics. Chris Kraft was monumental in creating Nasa's renowned Mission Control operation, which manages space flights. The mission was to carry Grissom, White, and Chaffee into Earth's orbit, allowing them to test out the Apollo launch and flight systemsin particular the Command Service Modulemaking sure the technology used on the eventual moon landing would be up to the task. Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? The initial version of the spacecraft contained more than 600 switches, indicators, and computers, all of which had to be connected and powered by an extensive amount of wiring. The NASA photo archives at College Park are not nearly as complete and extensive as the film holdings. Henry was 16 when WWII broke out. The Apollo 1 Command Module capsule 012 was impounded and studied after the accident and was then locked away in a storage facility at NASA Langley Research Center. Veteran astronaut Gus Grissom, first American spacewalker Ed White and rookie Roger Chaffee (left-to-right). Posts: 802From: Columbus, OH USARegistered: Jun 2002. The Soviets were big on publishing photos of pilots that gave their lives for the space program. But in my family home, in Canada, there's a memorial of our own: to Henry, and to the men he tried to save. CNMN Collection Is that the same building as the "infirmary" in the Cape industrial area that one passes on the Then and Now Tour? This service is provided on News Group Newspapers' Limited's Standard Terms and Conditions in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie Policy. 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. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. NY 10036. . A rare image of the Apollo crew on January 27, 1967. This would serve several purposes. According to the 200-page report, Grissom, Chaffee, and White had died of cardiac arrest from inhaling too much carbon monoxide and falling asleep. I will report the results back here unless someone here beats me to it! Many of these items were then used as spare parts on Spacecraft 017 and 020 (unmanned), or shipped back to Downy since there was nothing wrong with them and would not be needed in the future. Any thoughts or knowledge on this matter? Then the communications system acted up. [Photos: TheApollo 1Fire]. His suit is also the most damaged. 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. Rick, you talked about the crew autopsy being done near the pad (I think they called it the bioastronautics support unit). Most material from the late 80's and older is held at the archives, either in College Park or in other repositories around the country (notably in Atlanta and Fort Worth.) Remembering the Apollo 1 Crew NASA The prime crew members of NASA's first manned Apollo Space Flight are pictured during training in Florida on March 21, 1966. Posts: 31From: Reston, VA, USARegistered: Jun 2010. I've been through all the Apollo 1 photos at College Park. Among the names listed: Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/apollo-1-tragedy/6/. This verified that each part of 012 was not damaged with the dis-assembly techniques. This provides a view of cramped quarters inside the capsule. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our, Press J to jump to the feed. Gus Grissom taught NASA a hard lesson: You can hurt yourself in the ocean. The Apollo 1 space vehicle (initally referred to as Spacecraft 12) is hoisted to the top of the gantry at Pad 34 during the Apollo/Saturn Mission 204 (later known as the Apollo 1 flight) erection. Elizabeth first got interested in space after watching the movie Apollo 13 in 1996, and still wants to be an astronaut someday. Looking at /u/apfpilots photo of the Apollo 1 suits, I think theyre very possibly of the same design but would be consistent with other designs as well. He hung it on the flight simulator after he arrived at the Cape. I am assuming you're speaking of photos of the bodies, both in place and in autopsy. Image: NASA. For the same reason, Russian media would show cosmonauts being carried out of reentry capsules because they couldn't walk after so much time in zero gravity, while America wouldn't. The viewer would look through glass and observe the entire spacecraft from a top angle. Further, the hatch door intended to keep the astronauts and the atmosphere securely inside the spacecraft turned out to be too tough to open under the unfortunate circumstances. My grandpa was one of them. Apollo 1 was supposed to be the first manned mission to the moon, but it would take fivemore tries before Neil Armstrong made his lunar leap. In other words as you walk under the launch pedestal dead center below you would be Apollo 1. 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.. The night of the fire, Henry was on his way up to the white room to assist on the final simulation, an emergency escape. The fire reached the ceiling and sent "burning chunks of Teflon" flying off the spacecraft, Clemmons wrote in his essay. Although the mission was not officially named Apollo 1 until after the fire, this was the patch they intended to carry into space. The skull on the right-hand suit is actually an effect created by reflected light on the helmet, and I dont see any bones. USARegistered: Jul 2007. While it has been last year since I last perused the Apollo 1 material, and it is possible that additional photos are now available, in the past the crew photos have been very well protected from release. Clearly, the least expensive and most practical way to display Apollo 1 is as Rick suggested, though in my opinion it is not necessarily the best way. That doesn't tell us where these pics came from tho. However, because a pure oxygen atmosphere had worked without incident for the Mercury and Gemini capsules, NASA decided it would be safe to press ahead with the same for the larger Apollo capsule. The Apollo spacecraft Command Module for the AS-204 mission is shown during preparation for installation of the crew compartment heat shield. Despite the best efforts of the ground crew, the three men inside perished. Three astronauts were killed when arocket burst into flames on the launchpad in Cape Caneveral in 1967. There are so many photos of Walt in his Apollo 2 suit out there, and they appear to look the exact same as the Apollo 1 suits. Most of these copies of the recordings end just before the accident. Grissom, White, and Chaffee's names are carved on the Space Mirror Memorial for astronauts who died on the job, at Cape Canaveral. The Apollo 1 crew two days before the fire. We were sitting there, waiting for them to say what we knew they were going to say.". Look at the glass of the face shield compared to the A1 helmets, looks more like earlier Russian helmets to me. The first of three sons, my dad, was born in December 1946. Grissom was America's second person in space in 1961. It was a memorial to the astronauts who lost their lives in the pursuit of space exploration, who paved the way for crews like Apollo 15 to visit the moon, and return safely back home. The Apollo astronauts, most of them confident or even cocky test pilots, were accustomed to risk. Apollo 1 Crew NASA On Jan. 27, 1967, NASA experienced its first space disaster - the deaths of three astronauts during a training excercise for the Apollo 1 mission. Determination - The crew was exposed to a lethal atmosphere when the first suit was breached. Posts: 479From: AustraliaRegistered: Jul 2003, Posts: 4494From: Sierra Vista, ArizonaRegistered: Nov 1999. All had gone well, and no one thought the next days test, when the capsule would rely on its own internal power for the first time, would prove fatal. By the time Rogers stepped out into the white roomthe area of the shuttle tower that connects with the cabinflames were erupting and black smoke filled the room. As a matter of fact Ed White's handprint can clearly be seen permanently etched into the hatch. Elizabeth is also a post-secondary instructor in communications and science since 2015. Though they eventually pried the hatches off, it was too late. It was really hard for me to get an idea of where everything once stood as it would have for Apollo 1 and 7. 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. The crew was having trouble communicating with Mission Control while testing the Command Module on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral. As a boy, Henry would pick cotton or sell boiled peanuts at baseball games to help make ends meet. Some in the Astronaut Office were skeptical that Grissom's reputation would recover (many believed Grissom blew the hatch; he swore he didn't). "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee were killed when a fire erupted in their capsule during testing on the launch pad on Jan. 27, 1967 . I just finished watching a YouTube video ("1994 One Small Step") in which the former NASA press officer Paul Haney was interviewed. Image: NASA, "As members of the launch team, we felt we had lost three of our own and we felt very responsible," Tribe, the propulsion manager, told me. To someone looking in, it would appear that both astronauts had been incinerated since their seats were empty. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace. Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. All rights reserved. Any chance of finding its origin? The board listed adamning set of circumstances, failures and recommendationsfor future spacecraft designers to consider. These are pictures taken of the astronauts just after the Apollo 1 tragedy on January 27, 1967.