- Photo:
The Apollo 1 Disaster: One Of The Most Tragic Failures In NASA History
The Three Astronauts Would Have Made The First Manned Test Flight Of The Apollo Command/Service Module
- Photo:
- NASA/photographer unknown
- Wikimedia Commons
- Public Domain
Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, Edward White II, and Roger Chaffee were the main crew for the Apollo 1 mission. If they had been successful in their mission, they would have been the first manned mission in the Command/Serve Module – a huge step in the path toward a lunar landing. Sadly, their mission never made it off the ground when their spacecraft was engulfed in flames during a routine "plugs out" test and the three astronauts perished.
Devastatingly, Grissom had voiced concerns about the flight to his son, who almost expected his father to not go through with the mission. NASA was able to correct their mistakes and make future Apollo missions safer.
- Photo:
There Were A Number Of Problems With The Capsule – And The Astronauts Complained About Them Beforehand
- Photo:
- NASA/Kipp Teague
- Wikimedia Commons
- Public Domain
The full investigation after the fire led to the conclusion that there were numerous problems with Apollo 1 before the fire. According to the NASA summary, a combination of combustible materials throughout the craft, exposed wiring, and the pressurized oxygen in the cabin acting as an accelerant caused the fire to break out. However, those were not the only issues with the spacecraft.
The bad wiring in particular was noticeable and concerning before the test, and one of the astronauts had even complained. Gus Grissom kept his complaints behind the scenes, but put up with the risks due to fear of being kicked off the mission. Another major problem with Apollo 1 was communication. Just before the fire erupted, Grissom complained, "How are we going to get to the Moon if we can't talk between two or three buildings?" A minute later, he gave the call of alarm that the spacecraft was on fire.
- Photo:
This Tragic Mistake Probably Helped The Actual Moon Landing
- Photo:
In an effort to remain positive in the face of tragedy, some of those working for NASA at the time of the incident said that the fire, however distressing, was the reason they were able to land on the Moon a short two years later. Chris Kraft, the flight director for Apollo 1, told Ars Technica:
Unless the fire had happened, I think it’s very doubtful that we would have ever landed on the Moon. And I know damned well we wouldn't have gotten there during the 1960s. There were just too many things wrong. Too many management problems, too many people problems, and too many hardware problems across the whole program.
John Tribe, Apollo's spacecraft manager, echoed similar sentiments to Motherboard: "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."
The Inside Of The Cabin Looked Like "A Furnace"
- Photo:
The headline of The Washington Post article three days after the tragic fire read, "It Looks Like the Inside of a Furnace." The reporter, who was able to see inside the spacecraft, described it as a "darkened, dingy compartment... Its walls are covered with a slate-gray deposit of smoke and soot; its floor and couch frame are covered with ashes and debris.”
The fire that killed the three astronauts consumed the spacecraft in minutes, and by the time those outside the command module were able to open it – at least 15 minutes after the last radio contact from the astronauts inside – it was much too late. It was reported that the three men suffocated within seconds.
Rare Footage Shows NASA Technicians Taking Apollo 1 Apart After The Fatal Fire
- Photo:
Those Outside The Aircraft Heard The Screams, But They Were Unable To Help
- Photo:
In an interview with Ars Technica, flight director Chris Kraft recalled hearing the pilots' screams for help as he and the rest of ground control struggled to open the hatch of the space craft. Under ideal circumstances, the complex hatch could take 90 seconds to open. With an inferno blazing in the capsule, it took roughly five minutes – by which time Chaffee, Grissom, and White were long dead:
I heard their screaming voices in the cockpit of the spacecraft. I heard them scream that they were on fire. I heard them scream get me out of here. And then there was dead silence on the pad. Within minutes we knew they were dead, and we were in deep, serious trouble.
The Pressure To Win The Space Race Probably Led NASA To Cut Corners
- Photo:
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy promised America that the country would land on the Moon – and safely bring back the astronauts who did so – by the end of the decade. The political pressure was felt by everyone working on Apollo 1 and the rest of the Apollo program. NASA's haste in beating Russia to the Moon could have led to them knowingly overlook safety issues. The faulty wiring that started the fire had been bundled using machinery instead of by hand as a cost-cutting move, which left the capsule open to short circuits.
All in all, the spacecraft arrived with more than 100 "significant" engineering orders that had not been fixed yet. The crew and astronauts knew there were issues, but the astronauts didn't complain for fear of being kicked off the flight and giving up their chance to advance the mission to land the first man on the Moon.
The Apollo 1 Crew Died Quickly
- Photo:
There is no doubt that the way Grissom, Gaffee, and White died was tragic and gruesome. Possibly the only reassuring fact from the Apollo 1 incident report is that they died quickly.
The findings concluded that the men died from suffocation due to the amount of toxic gas in the air from the fire, and that they almost certainly went unconscious before they died.
A Oddly Similar Accident Happened In Russia
- Photo:
Six years before the Apollo 1 fire, there was Valentin Bondarenko. In 1961, Soviet astronaut Bondarenko was undergoing a routine exercise in what was called the Chamber of Silence, a pressurized chamber intended to test the astronaut's mental stability. As he was signaled that the test was over, Bondarenko wiped some adhesive off his face with rubbing alcohol – he then flung the alcohol-soaked cotton pad, and it landed on a hot plate coil, starting a fire.
Similarly to Apollo 1, the high concentration of oxygen in the chamber allowed the fire to spread rapidly. Although technicians were able to open the capsule and pull out Bondarenko almost immediately, he had already suffered serious burns, and he died in the hospital the next morning.
Newsreel Footage Shows How The Apollo 1 Fire Was Covered At The Time
- Photo:
