by Rick Moran in PJ Media
Forty-Seven years ago, astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger
Chaffee shoehorned themselves into the Apollo capsule for a full-on test of
their brand new vehicle — a “plugs-out” exercise to see what the vehicle could
do when not attached to an external power source.
For months, the 3 men had been trying to work out the kinks in the
spacecraft. On January 27, 1967, the astronauts were dealing with design
problems, balky systems, and a communications nightmare that led Grissom to
exclaim at one point, “How are we going to get to the moon if we can’t talk
between two or three buildings?” Grissom was disgusted with more than the
communications system. He thought the entire spacecraft needed to be redesigned:
On his last visit home in Texas, Jan. 22, 1967, Grissom grabbed a
lemon off a citrus tree in the backyard. His wife, Betty, asked what he was
going to do with it. “I’m going to hang it on that spacecraft,” he answered as
he kissed her goodbye. He did so once he arrived at the Cape.
Grissom’s cynicism proved justified.
NBC’s veteran space anchor Jay Barbree picks up the story of what
happened that late afternoon at Launch
Complex 34:
Somewhere beneath the seat of Apollo 1 Commander Gus Grissom, an
open wire chafed. Insulation was worn and torn. The wire, alive with electrical
power, lay bare in a thick soup of 100 percent oxygen — one of the most
dangerous and corrosive gases known. Exposed to an ignition source, it is
extremely flammable.
It had been used in the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft without
trouble. But this much pure oxygen inside a ship as large as Apollo was another
story.
Grissom and his Apollo 1 crewmates, Ed White and Roger Chaffee
were on the launch pad undergoing a full dress rehearsal countdown when Gus
shifted his body for comfort.
His seat moved the bare wire.
It sparked.
Instant fire!
The launch team froze before its television monitors. Muscles
stiffened, voices ceased in mid-sentence. They didn’t know what they were witnessing.
It was something horrifying and unbelievable. Flames rampaging inside Apollo 1
— a whirlwind of fire burning everything it touched.
The medical readings showed Ed White’s pulse rate jumped off the
charts — showed the three astronauts burst into instant movement.
The first call from Apollo 1 smashed into the launch team’s
headsets.
“Fire!”
One word from Ed White.
Then, the unmistakable deep voice of Gus Grissom.
“I’ve got a fire in the cockpit!”
Instantly afterward, Roger Chaffee’s voice.
“Fire!”
Then a garbled transmission and then the final plea:
“Get us out!”
Then words known only to God, followed by a scream …
Silence.
In the blockhouse, the chief of astronauts, Deke Slayton, jumped
from his chair, shouting, “What the hell’s happening?”
Eyes stared in horror at the monitors. Flames expanded swiftly,
built to a white glare before subsiding, and Deke thought he saw a shadow
moving inside. He couldn’t be sure, and then he saw bright orange flames
flickering about Apollo 1′s hatch.
Hellish flames followed by thick smoke.
An icy chill moved over his skin. Those calls of fire, that final
garbled scream — they had come from inside Apollo 1.
Pad crews were rushing to the scene, trying to get to Gus, Ed and
Roger. Astronaut Stuart Roosa, on console in the blockhouse, was trying
frantically to talk with them. Again and again he called, desperate, his face
chalk white.
No response.
The three astronauts died of asphyxiation. Their deaths were
relatively quick and painless, their suits protecting them from the intense
heat of the fire. But there were questions that should have been asked before
that tragic day that now demanded answers.
A NASA review board found a stray spark (probably from damaged
wires near Grissom’s couch) started the fire in the pure oxygen environment.
Fed by flammable features such as nylon netting and foam pads, the blaze
quickly spread. [Infographic: How the Apollo 1 Fire Happened]
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.
The board listed a damning
set of circumstances, failures and recommendations for
future spacecraft designers to consider.
This was a management failure from top to bottom. A US Senate
investigation excoriated the agency, saying NASA’s failure to report its problems
with Apollo “was an unquestionably serious dereliction.”
It was — echoing the 9/11 Commission — a “failure of imagination.”
But despite this, Grissom, Chaffee, and White did not die in vain.
Although coming within a hair’s breadth of having the moon program cancelled,
the accident appeared to breathe a new spirit into the entire program:
Chagrined, NASA and the companies building the Apollo spacecraft
got to work. The flammable oxygen environment for ground tests was replaced
with a nitrogen-oxygen mix. Flammable items were removed. A new respect
developed between the astronauts and the contractors concerning design changes,
which were implemented more effectively. Most notably, the door was completely
redesigned so that it would open in mere seconds when the crew needed to get
out in a hurry.
And when Apollo 13 got into severe trouble on its way to the moon,
it is generally accepted that the knowledge and expertise gained from the
Apollo 1 tragedy, helped the agency bring those men home safely.
NASA has fallen on hard times. But it’s not only budget cuts that
ails the space agency. We all have forgotten the spirit that animated Grissom,
White, and Chaffee — a spirit that allowed them to face the many challenges
associated with space flight with courage and good cheer.
Why were their dreams so big and ours so small? Perhaps the answer
to that question says a lot about the America we’ve become versus the America
we were.
Rick Moran is PJ Media's Chicago editor and Blog editor at The
American Thinker. He is also host of the"RINO Hour of Power" on
Blog Talk Radio. His own blog is Right Wing Nut House.
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