On January 27th 1967, NASA astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee became the first fatalities of Project Apollo – the plan to land men on the moon.
By 1967 NASA was well underway with the ambitious plan to land men on the moon by the end of the 1960’s – a promise made by President John F Kennedy back in 1961.
The space programme in America had been kick-started in the late 1950’s by advances in rocketry which enabled; firstly unmanned satellites to be launched into orbit around the Earth in 1958 and then astronauts themselves to be launched into space in the early 1960’s.
The space programme went through three stages.
Project Mercury was first – aiming to launch capsules containing a single astronaut into orbit around the Earth.
Project Gemini was second – the Gemini craft were two-man space craft in which astronauts could fly for much longer durations – days and weeks at a time. Project Gemini was also when the first American spacewalks were conducted.
Project Apollo was third – the Apollo spacecraft were three-man spacecraft designed to fly all the way to, and land upon, the moon.
On January 27th 1967, the crew of Apollo 1 – the first Apollo mission were inside their capsule, mounted atop a rocket at the launchpad in Cape Kennedy in Florida, working through a series of tests on the craft.
Each time a new space craft was built, it would go through months of exhaustive testing, designed to make sure every single component worked exactly as necessary, long before it ever flew into space.
On this fateful day the radio communication which was being tested. It was a ‘plugs out’ test which meant that the spacecraft was disconnected from external power sources and was running on internal power. The three astronauts, wearing their pressure suits, entered the capsule at 1 pm and were seated. The hatch was sealed from the outside and as per procedure, the atmosphere in the capsule was replaced by pure oxygen for the astronauts to breath.
The scene was set.
At 6:30 pm, the astronauts were working through their checklist as part of a simulated countdown when Grissom yelled “fire” into his microphone and then repeated, “flames!” Chaffee then reported, “we’ve got a bad fire in here,” and several more garbled transmissions were received by mission control, containing yelling and the sound of men in pain.
Crew at the pad rushed to open the hatch but were unable to do so for five long minutes because the flames had burst through the spacecraft exterior, releasing heat, noxious gas and choking smoke.
Finally the hatch was opened and the ground crews worst fears were realised.
All three astronauts had perished.
The cause of the fire would never be confirmed. Most likely it was a spark in the wiring which, in the 100% oxygen atmosphere, was enough to spark a lethal fire.
The three astronauts were laid to rest and the Apollo space programme was put on hold while a thorough investigation was undertaken, to ensure such a tragedy would not happen again.
When once restarted, the next five Apollo missions would be unmanned ones, to test various parts of the space craft function.
The first manned Apollo mission to launch would be in October of 1968 – almost two years later. That was Apollo 7.
Apollo 8 would fly to the moon in December 1968.
Apollo 9 would test the Lunar Module in low Earth orbit in March 1969.
Apollo 10 would fly to the moon, detach the Lunar Module and fly within thirty miles of the surface of the moon in May 1969.
And in July 1969 – Apollo 11 would land safely on the moon, marking mankind’s first steps outside of this planet.
And Neil Armstrong, mission commander of Apollo 11, would leave on a the moon an Apollo 1 mission patch – as a tribute to the three astronauts who lost their lives on January 27th 1967.
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