It was 53 years ago today, January 27th, 1967, when the NASA Space Program lost all 3 of their primary members of their Apollo 1 crew.
Apollo 1, was being prepared to be the first crewed mission of the United States Space program. It was planned to launch on February 21st, 1967 and was to land the first humans on the Moon.
Apollo 1 head James Webb notified the White House representative Jim Jones at 7:45 p.m. on the evening of the tragedy that Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were all killed in a capsule fire during testing.
The three astronauts were working inside the pressurized capsule of Apollo 1 when a spark ignited the 100% oxygenated compartment. The combination of the oxygen-rich air and pressurized capsule made the fire burn and spread incredibly fast and prevented the engineers working outside from getting inside the capsule to save the astronauts.
The United States and its citizenry were shaken by the loss of their beloved astronauts. The USSR, the United State's only real competitor in the space race, openly expressed how sorry they were to hear of the tragedy. The NASA Space program reeled from the mishap and Apollo was grounded for almost two years until engineers made the necessary changes to their systems, protocols and spacecraft to assure future safety and success.
The three astronauts were all memorialized since that faithful day (Civic buildings, schools, etc. don their names) but maybe NASA's greatest honor to their legacy is their painstaking procedures and safety measures to assure there is never a fire on one of their spacecraft.
Astronauts Grissom, White and Chaffee practicing water rescue.
Astronauts praying before landing capsule. Possible harbinger of tragedy to come?
Chrysler Space program awareness Ad.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson at the funeral for the 3 beloved astronauts.
LBJ's letter to the parents of Roger Chafee
