27 January 1967. One of the worst tragedies in the history of spaceflight occurred on January 27, 1967 when the crew of Gus Grissom,
On Jan. 27, 1967, a fire swept through the Apollo 1 Command Module during a launch rehearsal test, tragically killing the three astronauts trapped inside. Astronauts Gus Grissom (left), Ed White (middle), and Roger Chaffee (right), died on Jan.
The nation's Moon landing program suffered a shocking setback on Jan. 27, 1967, with the deaths of Apollo 1 astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B.
Investigators found that the fire began because of an electrical short, due to the choice of Teflon as the covering for the wiring within the space capsule. Although Teflon is known as a flame-resistant material, the wires covered in Teflon and chosen for the command module were easily penetrated and damaged.
Two Apollo missions were failures: a 1967 cabin fire killed the entire Apollo 1 crew during a ground test in preparation for what was to be the first crewed flight; and the third landing attempt on Apollo 13 was aborted by an oxygen tank explosion en route to the Moon, which disabled the CSM Odyssey's electrical power ...
Chaffee said, "We have a bad fire!", followed by shouting. The last crew communication ended 17 seconds after the first indication of the start of the fire, followed by loss of all telemetry. The Apollo hatch could only open inward and was held closed by a number of latches which had to be operated by ratchets.
Apollo 1 was expected to fly to Earth orbit later in 1967 with astronauts Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Ed White on board. During a test on the launch pad, however, a fire erupted and rapidly asphyxiated all three astronauts.
The mission never flew; a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 on January 27 killed all three crew members—Command Pilot Gus Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee—and destroyed the command module (CM).
The high heat, smoke, and poor visibility meant that recovery couldn't begin immediately. Once it finally did (6 hours after the accident), it took and an hour and a half for the bodies of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee to be recovered from the burned out husk of Apollo 1.
Apollo is angry because Chryseis, the daughter of one of his priests, has been kidnapped. Agamemnon takes Chryseis as a war prize and Apollo is so furious that he sends a plague against the Achaeans.
The command module of Apollo 13 entered Earth's atmosphere and splashed down on target on April 17 at 1:07 PM Eastern Standard Time. The mission has been referred to as a successful failure, in that all the crew members survived a catastrophic accident.
(Gus) Grissom, 40, and Edward H. White, 36, and rookie Roger Chaffee, 31, died in flames while lying on their backs in their moonship in a routine ground test for their Feb. 21 orbital flight.
Pure oxygen was used in the case of the Apollo I because the alternative of using mixed gases did not allow for a breathable atmosphere. In addition, the fire safety checks assumed that there would be no flammable hazards that could pose any threat to the astronauts.
Haise came down with a kidney infection, but suffered no long-term ill effects from the ordeal. The mission, dubbed a successful failure, spawned a popular movie called "Apollo 13," which was based on Lovell's biography, "Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13" (Houghton Mifflin, 1994).
Apollo 13 was NASA's third moon-landing mission, but the astronauts never made it to the lunar surface. During the mission's dramatic series of events, an oxygen tank explosion almost 56 hours into the flight forced the crew to abandon all thoughts of reaching the moon.
Apollo lunar missions had all three in spades. There was plenty of electricity running through the spacecraft, lots of material that could be fuel and a 100 percent oxygen atmosphere under pressure.
The fault was in engine two, but due to cross-connection of wires, the command from the Instrument Unit also shut down engine three, which had been running normally. The Instrument Unit was able to compensate, and the remaining three engines burned for 58 seconds longer than planned.
Mitchell entered the changes with minutes to go until planned ignition. A second problem occurred during the powered descent, when the LM landing radar failed to lock automatically onto the Moon's surface, depriving the navigation computer of vital information on the vehicle's altitude and vertical descent speed.
Haste for space
Perhaps the Apollo 1 fire could have been prevented if the United States had not been caught up in a race to get to the moon. On the other hand, it's important to remember that NASA was attempting to do something that had never been done before, and that comes with an inherent risk, Chiao noted.
Apollo 13 has been called a “successful failure,” because the crew never landed on the Moon, but they made it home safely after an explosion crippled their ship. A switch and insulation, which should have been modified during an upgrade to one oxygen tank, were damaged during a test of that tank during construction.
Just 18 hours after launch, Apollo 8 experienced a major problem: Borman fell ill and struggled through vomiting and diarrhea. The commander felt better after getting some sleep, but as a precaution, the other crewmembers radioed to Earth on a private channel and explained Borman's predicament.
Apollo 13 's best known quotes originated not in space or Mission Control, but in Hollywood. Their moon-bound spacecraft wrecked by an oxygen tank explosion on April 13, 1970, the astronauts urgently radioed, “Houston, we've had a problem here.”
As punishment for encouraging his legacy Octavian to pursue his perilous approach to conflict, Apollo is cast down from Olympus by his father, Zeus; stripped of his godhood, he becomes human for the third time.
Apollo 2 and 3: There were no craft named Apollo 2 or 3. Apparently after the Apollo-1 craft was destroyed during a pre-flight test at Cape Canaveral, the first few mission (through Apollo-6) were unmanned missions to test various aspects of the Apollo program - Launch vehicle, CSM, LM, and their inter-play.
It has been 50 years since the Apollo 1 fire killed Roger Chaffee at Cape Kennedy's Launch Complex 34 in Florida. Chaffee, along with astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom and Ed White II, died on Jan. 27, 1967, when a blaze erupted in their command module during preflight testing.