We have a Fire in the cockpit.... With those words spoken 47 years ago tomorrow night we lost our first astronaut crew. No one saw it happen. There is no video, no television footage. It happened only 218 feet off the ground. Surrounded by the launch support structure on Launch Pad 34. The place was Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The crew Veteran space flyer Virgil Gus Grissom, veteran space flyer Edward White Jr. and rookie astronaut Roger Chaffee. All three sealed inside their spacecraft for a routine test. The final ground test to make sure the new Apollo Spacecraft was ready to fly into low Earth orbit a few weeks later. The capsule under its own power. Cabin pressurized with 100% pure oxygen. 30 miles of electrical wiring in the command module alone. Somewhere in that wiring a spark jumped from frayed wiring catching netting below the crew couches on fire. In the highly pressurized oxygen environment the fire quickly spread. the crew unable to open an inward opening complicated 3 piece hatch perished within seconds. The space program grounded the moon which seemed so close now seemed out of reach. In the months that followed tight schedules and bad workmanship was blamed as well as the use of pure oxygen in the cabin under high pressure. Flamable materials were removed. Quality assurance was stepped up and in October 1968 1 year and 9 months after the fire Apollo 7 flew into earth orbit in a new improved command module. In December Apollo 8 became the first human crew to orbit the moon. And In July 1969 Apollo 11 would be the first to land on it. Before the flight Gus Grissom said the following quote If we die we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life. Our God-given curiosity will force us to go there ourselves because in the final analysis, only man can fully evaluate the moon in terms understandable to other men. The crew of Apollo 1 died for the cause of exploration. Their sacrifice will not be forgotten and because of it the Apollo program was out back on track and men walked on the moon. May the crew Rest in Peace.
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 04:16:04 +0000
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