Each January, a tight-knit clutch of households and associates head for a barren, disused space of Cape Canaveral to replicate and bear in mind. With nearly non secular reverence, they lay shiny splashes of winter blooms close to a gaunt concrete and metal hulk that memorializes one of many darkest days of America’s area previous. The construction, slowly however absolutely decaying within the salty Florida air, is now overgrown by weeds and wild pepper timber. Clinging to one among its rusting limbs is a pale “abandon in place” discover.
Three engraved granite benches furnish their very own unvoiced phrases of tribute. “Launch Advanced 34, Friday 27 January 1967, 1831 Hours,” one laconically reads. One other recollects the three astronauts who died on this spot greater than a half-century in the past. These three American sons — Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee — had been misplaced in appalling circumstances, but their sacrifice helped facilitate the success of the Apollo program’s push to land males on the Moon.
An uninspiring spacecraft
Apollo 1’s crew knew their ship might by no means attain the Moon. It was by no means meant to. The barebones ‘Block 1’ spacecraft, supposed just for Earth-orbital exams, had not one of the navigational wizardry or docking instruments vital for a lunar voyage. (These flights would await the extra superior Block 2.) However from the beginning, many astronauts disliked and distrusted Block 1 for its defective wiring, dangerous software program, leaky valves, and dozens of unresolved technical issues.
Prime contractor North American Aviation was roundly blamed for poor workmanship and lax security requirements. “A slick, bigtime bunch of Washington operators,” astronaut Tom Stafford cynically opined in his memoir, We Have Seize (Smithsonian Books, 2004), “in comparison with the mom-and-pop operation at McDonnell,” which constructed NASA’s earlier Gemini spacecraft. Throughout Gemini, astronauts might speak to the boss, James McDonnell himself, however North American was a really completely different company beast.
But North American confronted its personal challenges, notably NASA’s mandate that the Apollo capsule ought to possess a pure oxygen ambiance. This alternative was much less technically difficult than arranging an Earth-like oxygen/nitrogen combine, however it posed an excessive fireplace threat. Something within the spacecraft that unintentionally caught ablaze would explosively burn — actually a satan’s cut price.
Backdropped by this palpable sense of unease, 1967 dawned. Commander Virgil ‘Gus’ Grissom, America’s second man in area, was joined on Apollo 1 by Senior Pilot Ed White, the nation’s first spacewalker. Rounding out the Apollo 1 crew was Pilot Roger Chaffee, an lively rookie. The plan was that they might fly a 15-story Saturn IB rocket into Earth orbit in late February for a two-week shakedown of Apollo’s myriad methods.
However Grissom harbored scant religion in his ship, branding its design sloppy and unsafe. Even the simulators by no means marched in lockstep with ever-changing software program and {hardware} modifications to the spacecraft. His crew had a mocking portrait taken, their heads bowed in prayer, hopeful that the area gods may conjure some joyful fortune. “It’s not that we don’t belief you,” they advised NASA brass, “however we’ve determined to go over your head.” When a journalist requested what would make Apollo 1 profitable, Grissom unsmilingly retorted that getting his males dwelling alive was sufficient.
The evening earlier than an unpowered (“plugs-out”) check of Apollo 1 that happened Jan. 27, 1967, fellow astronaut Wally Schirra pulled Grissom apart. He too hated the Block 1 design. “If you happen to get the slightest glitch,” Schirra advised his longtime good friend, “get outta there. I don’t prefer it.”
The deadly fireplace
On the afternoon of Jan. 27, clad of their area fits, the crew boarded the Apollo 1 capsule, perched excessive atop the Saturn IB. Grissom seen a wierd odor, like soured buttermilk, however air samples revealed nothing untoward. The heavy, two-piece hatch was sealed, adopted by the rocket’s increase protecting cowl. Subsequent, pure oxygen was pumped into the cabin.
The hatch brought about complications of its personal. North American wished a single-piece hatch, fitted with explosive bolts so it might be rapidly opened in an emergency. However NASA, fearful that the bolts might misfire whereas in area, nixed this concept. An inward-opening hatch meant cabin strain would assist tightly seal it throughout flight, however the design additionally made it laborious to open when on the bottom. Throughout simulations, even the super-fit White wanted two full minutes to crank the hatch ajar.
The check went badly from the outset. A excessive oxygen circulate indicator repeatedly triggered Apollo 1’s grasp alarm, and spotty communications between Grissom and astronaut Stu Roosa, seated within the close by blockhouse, brought about tempers to fray. At one level, Grissom bellowed with unvarnished angst: “How are we gonna get to the Moon if we are able to’t speak between two or three buildings?”
Sitting with Roosa was astronaut Deke Slayton. Seconds after 6:31 p.m. EST, Slayton noticed one thing odd on his monitor. It was a picture from a digicam pointed at Apollo 1’s round hatch window. However as an alternative of a darkish circle, it was illuminated, nearly white.
Instantly, the crew’s biomedical readings skyrocketed, indicating elevated oxygen circulate of their area fits. Different sensors detected a short energy surge. Then got here the primary name from inside Apollo 1.
It was Chaffee’s voice. And it was only one phrase: “Hearth!”
Now the calls got here thick and quick. “We’ve bought a hearth within the cockpit,” Chaffee yelled. “Let’s get out. We’re burning up.” His transmission ended with a scream that was blood-curdling each in its brevity and its agony.
Downstairs, on the launch pad’s first flooring, technician Gary Propst checked out his monitor and noticed White, arms raised over his head, twiddling with the hatch. Propst questioned why he didn’t simply open the hatch. However to take action, White wanted a ratchet to launch a number of bolts. With solely seconds out there earlier than the fireplace and smoke claimed him, he scarcely had time to loosen the primary bolt.
It made no distinction. Hearth hungrily gorged Apollo 1 as pressures sealed the hatch with immense drive. No man on Earth might have opened it below such circumstances.
Would-be rescuers had been crushed again by incessant waves of warmth and what pad chief Don Babbitt referred to as “a heavy thick gray smoke, very billowing, however very thick.” Nobody might see far past the tip of their very own nostril. Twenty-seven technicians had been handled that evening for smoke inhalation. However the true horror got here when rescuers reached Apollo 1, 5 minutes after Chaffee’s preliminary shout.
The command module, dimly lit by flickering flashlights, was a scene of devastation. Grissom, White and Chaffee had been lifeless. None had suffered life-threatening burns, all having succumbed to asphyxiation.
Investigators discovered the fireplace doubtless sparked below Grissom’s left footrest, close to some unprotected or chafed wires. Fed by pure oxygen, and with Velcro pads, nylon nets, and polyurethane panels including further gas, an inferno took maintain.
“At such strain, and bathed by pure oxygen,” wrote Grissom’s biographer, Ray Boomhower, “a cigarette might be decreased to ashes in seconds.”
The lasting legacy of Apollo 1
‘The Hearth,’ as historical past remembers it, got here near derailing America’s lunar objectives. After Grissom and Chaffee had been buried at Arlington, and White laid to relaxation at his beloved West Level, recriminations started. North American Aviation’s poor workmanship and NASA’s poor oversight had been mauled by press, public, and lawmakers alike.
Over the following yr, nevertheless, Apollo was reborn, a phoenix from the ashes. The spacecraft cabin was pressurized with a 60/40 oxygen/nitrogen combine; all flammable supplies had been eliminated; and a brand new single-piece hatch was put in that might be sprung open in seconds with a push from an astronaut’s pinkie.
Aluminum plumbing was changed by stainless-steel; coolant pipes had been armored with high-strength epoxy; wire bundles had been encased in metallic. Nylon was changed with fire-retardant Teflon and paper minimized, together with studying materials. “No books or magazines,” wrote Wally Schirra, who commanded Apollo 7 in October 1968. “Nor might we take something manufactured from paper to play with, resembling playing cards or puzzles.”
The Apollo fireplace stays one among America’s darkest moments. It arose from an insatiable ‘go’ fever and the perverse prioritization of schedule over security — a merciless lesson that might be repeated in the course of the Challenger catastrophe Jan. 28, 1986, and the Columbia catastrophe Feb. 1, 2003.
But when a grain of optimism might be salvaged from Apollo 1, it’s this: With out Grissom, White, and Chaffee’s sacrifice, it’s extremely unbelievable that America might have safely reached the Moon. And that, absolutely, is a legacy of which they’ll take delight.
