Spacecraft 12 was to have flown on the Apollo/Saturn 204 mission (later known as Apollo 1). Apollo Spacecraft 12 Command/Service Module is moved from H-134 to east stokes for mating to the Saturn Lunar Module Adapter No. Should we be surprised that it appears the Air Force either chose not to mention or simply overlooked the gash in its official autopsy report on Chaffee? It consisted of a full countdown rehearsal, followed by disconnecting the ground systems (that's the "plugs out" part) to see if the systems on the launch vehicle and the spacecraft worked on their own. Look at the glass of the face shield compared to the A1 helmets, looks more like earlier Russian helmets to me. It was a horrific way to go nonetheless, and the waves of grief affected everyone in the program. Just seconds after a spark ignited inside the capsule, a conflagration burned hotter than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Elizabeth holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. 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?". Then the communications system acted up. This provides a view of cramped quarters inside the capsule. When we removed the inner hatch, it would only go so far as it was lodged against Ed's body. New York, I will report the results back here unless someone here beats me to it! Fellow spaceflight veteranEd White, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, was the first American to make a spacewalk, on Gemini 4 in 1965. We keep his medal, for exceptional bravery, in a humble wooden frame. Some in the Astronaut Office were skeptical that Grissom's reputation would recover (many believed Grissom blew the hatch; he swore he didn't). Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. For further details of our complaints policy and to make a complaint please click this link: thesun.co.uk/editorial-complaints/, Apollo 1's tragic crew Gus Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee, Interior of NASA's Apollo 1 space capsule following the fire that killed three astronauts. If it is going to be on display it should be done tastefully with closed hatches and blacked out windows. The individuals are (L to R) Dr. Robert C. Seamans, NASA Deputy Administrator; James E. Webb, NASA Administrator; Dr. George E. Mueller, Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, and Maj. Gen. Samuel C. Phillips, Apollo Program Director. This service is provided on News Group Newspapers' Limited's Standard Terms and Conditions in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie Policy. Posts: 225From: Lake Orion, MichiganRegistered: Feb 2006, Posts: 270From: College Station, TXRegistered: Apr 2003, Posts: 101From: Bryan, Texas USARegistered: Jun 2005, Posts: 1624From: Bethpage, N.Y.Registered: Jul 2002, Posts: 2141From: Essex, UKRegistered: Jul 2001, Copyright 2020 collectSPACE.com All rights reserved. During this time, the workers in the control room were stunned, listening to the astronaut's distraught communications and helpless to do anything. 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. The more likely problem is that once the hoses became separated from the spacesuits, they could have distributed additional oxygen into the cabin to help keep the fire alive. The interior components could be stored as they are now with the spacecraft in the equipment room, but out of sight from everyone. "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. After inspection of the craft Nasa concluded that the fire broke out under astronautGus Grissom's seat. I'm sure it was a calculated risk for them to be on Apollo 1.0 instead of Apollo 15.0 or something. Fellow astronauts (left to right) Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Gordon Cooper, and John Young serve as escorts. No one seems to know where the main hull of 014 went to, but it is possible that it was also shipped back to Downy, California, since it still belonged to NAA and had not been accepted by NASA. If the capsule was to be displayed in the future, like Rick, I don't think at all it should be restored, No, keep her as she was after the fire investigation and block out the windows. College Park contains a good deal more than just NACA and Apollo 1 and Challenger. By the way, Stephen Clemmons if you are reading this please explain what "scrapped" means in regard to CM 014, the spacecraft dismantled during the Apollo 1 fire investigation. Again, all of this is pure speculation since I the quality is so crappy, I'm not sure about anything I think I see on those photographs. We were sitting there, waiting for them to say what we knew they were going to say.". Ultimately, however, the Apollo 1 fire probably saved NASAs lunar ambitions. Posts: 1376From: ridgefield, ctRegistered: May 2002. Her latest book, "Why Am I Taller? It would be nice, in my opinion, to get the first manned Apollo ship out of Langley's storage and somehow display the craft in the most delicate, tasteful, and appropriate means that could make everyone happy. Posts: 31From: Reston, VA, USARegistered: Jun 2010. The Apollo 1 crew commander,Virgil "Gus" Grissom, was an Air Force veteran of the Korean War. 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. Ultimate Bulletin Board 5.47a. I don't agree that the inner pressure hull should be left out. Three astronauts were killed when arocket burst into flames on the launchpad in Cape Caneveral in 1967. "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. Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? The loss of structural integrity at these penetrations occurred after the primary rupture. But for those like Henry Rogers who experienced the tragedy firsthand, the trauma of January 27, 1967 left scars, and a deep sense of regret that's difficult to capture all these years later. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! The Apollo 1 crew, from left to right, Roger Chaffee, Ed White and Gus Grissom. Deke Slayton, who oversaw crew selections at NASA and was present for the test, could see white flames in a closed-circuit television monitor pointing toward the spacecraft. Now getting a chance to fly after five years in the program, he said, "I think it will be a lot of fun.". Yet even amid this hectic schedule, engineers with the agency confidently conducted final design reviews on the Apollo capsule. Everybody was working to get us there. The only fire-related incident in the USSR space program was also during training but only one guy and I don't think he was wearing a spacesuit. "Instead he made his way through the smoke and fire and began to help any way he could. A better Apollo capsule was born from the accident. Photos were taken of the bodies, but I couldn't find anything indicating more were taken after they were removed from the Command Module. "All of a sudden someone, we believe it was Grissom, said 'fire,'" John Tribe, the spacecraft propulsion manager for Apollo, who was in the control room in a separate building that night, told me. 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. Henry was 16 when WWII broke out. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Apollo_1_-_Chaffee_in_Apollo_Block_I_space_suit.jpg. The interior of the Command Module shows the effects of the intense heat of the flash fire which killed the prime crew during a routine training exercise. The team had spent the day conducting a standard last check of all the systems called a "plugs out" test. Moreover, both of his ears were bleeding and his face and scrotum were lacerated. They grew up poor; Henry once had to wear his sister's old shoes because the family couldn't afford new ones for him. "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. 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. 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. Posts: 851From: Celina, OhioRegistered: Feb 2000. During 1966, NASA flew five Gemini missions. Now the Apollo missions would take astronauts all the way to the moon for orbital missions and landing missions. They were never hermetically sealed like the interior spacecraft components were. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. The astronauts had struggled in vain to open the door during the fire, but the pressure inside the spacecraft sealed the door and made it impossible to open. After leaving NASA at the conclusion of the Apollo program in 1975, he enjoyed just four years of retirement before he died from pancreatic cancer. Veteran astronaut Gus Grissom, first American spacewalker Ed White and rookie Roger Chaffee (left-to-right). It should be left as is for the sake of history and for future generations and possible analysis down the line in years to come when technology improves. As I said in my earlier post you can still see shredded white flakes of spacesuit material below the hatchway sill on the floor of the spacecraft upon the melted mattress pads. And I heard a couple months ago that the Langley storage had being cleaned out, and everything shipped down to the Cape to be stored with the Challenger debris in the LC34 silos? Fifty years ago, Henry Rogers stepped off an elevator into an inferno. Regarding CM 014 being scrapped, when Spacecraft 014 was brought to the PIB, it was used to develop removal procedures to disassemble Spacecraft 012. About the skull, I'm not sure It's reflected light. 2023 Cond Nast. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Read our affiliate link policy. The viles of blood, are they also in the storage down at Langley? As for the spacecraft and related components being shipped to the Cape and buried in the silos, this was attempted once (and blocked). 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 investigation photographs were mostly in color and of better quality than any version of the "corpse" photos I could find. As a result, everyone on the Apollo team felt a personal responsibility to put in marathon time. I'll have to accept the opinion of those that removed the bodies later as to what they found. . I find it unlikely that their bodies were not removed before these photos were taken, but its possible their faces could have imprinted on the glass somehowresting on the glass while ash accumulated around it, or something of that naturein a way that would have left an impression even after the remains were removed. The Apollo spacecraft Command Module for the AS-204 mission is shown during preparation for installation of the crew compartment heat shield. NASA Historical Reference Collection, NASA History Office, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. I don't believe that it would have been scrapped at KSC because of the materials involved. To view it, confirm your age. Posts: 342From: Houston, Texas, USARegistered: Jun 2004. This page may contain sensitive or adult content that's not for everyone. I tend to spend much more time on the 4th floor in the film archives than in the photo archives. There were also some design flaws that enabled the initial spark to ignite, and go unnoticed, and to incinerate nearby, highly-flammable materials, causing the fire to grow out of control in mere seconds. Did this really happen? 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. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. 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. Posts: 1405From: Huntington BeachRegistered: Feb 2000, Posts: 649From: Sacramento, CARegistered: Jun 2001. To view it, confirm your age. Grissom, White, and Chaffee did not die in vain, Tribe said. 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. Jerry was almost as bad off. We never really had any doubts. The Mercury and Gemini onboard original film is at College Park. 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 next transmission comes through as a muffled"I'm getting out" before screams can be heard. 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. Grissom was America's second person in space in 1961. You look at the crew photos of Apollo 1 in front of the Service Structure, Gantry and blockhouse and the place looked like a beehive of activity back in the day. 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. Failure of the water glycol and oxygen lines near the environmental control unit resulted in local burning and melting of the adjacent structure. There, at a five and dime store, he met a fiery redhead Canadian girl from across the river in Windsor, working as a cashier. Theres an identifying patch on the left suit. Im always asked if I was nervous about that flight, said Cunningham, the lunar module pilot on Apollo 7, which markedNASAs return to flight after the accident. By the winter of 1967, President John F. Kennedy 's goal of " landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth" by the end of the decade appeared to .