News 50 th Anniversary Apollo 1 fire

[dman]

Today January 27, 2017, marks 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 1 pad fire
which killed 3 astronauts - Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...o-three-astronauts-died-in-the-apollo-1-fire/

Still remember news flash which announced the disaster...

 

[Notebook]

I remember it too, a shocking awful event. It seemed unthinkable.

N.

 

[llarian]

I was 10 when it happened. Cried then. For some reason I had never taken the opportunity to listen to audio files that were available until a couple of months ago. Actually cried again.

Still seems a pity that NASA management still has not learned.

 

[ADSWNJ]

RIP fallen NASA heroes. Your sacrifice made spacecraft safer forever.

Space Shuttle Challenger was my era. 31 days ago tomorrow. I can remember the exact second I saw that news.

Manned space is unforgiving, but mankind is driven to do it despite those risks. I am pretty sure that all those who gave their lives would want it no other way ... push humankind to look to the stars.

 

[Nicholas Kang]

Apollo 1 Crew Honored in New Tribute Exhibit

The entrance to the tribute to Apollo 1 shows the three astronauts who perished in a fire at the launch pad on Jan. 27, 1967 during training for the mission. The astronauts are, from left, Gus Grissom, Ed White II and Roger Chaffee. The tribute opened Jan. 27, 2017, 50 years after the crew was lost.
Credits: NASA/Kim Shiflett

Called "Ad Astra Per Aspera - A Rough Road Leads to the Stars", the tribute exhibit carries the blessings of the families of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White II and Roger Chaffee. It showcases clothing, tools and models that define the men as their parents, wives and children saw them as much as how the nation viewed them. It stands only a few miles from the long-abandoned Launch Complex 34, the launch pad where the fire took place. The pad was dismantled in 1968 after the launch of Apollo 7.

The main focus was to introduce the astronauts to generations who never met them and may not know much about them or the early space program.

The tribute also displays for the first time the three-section hatch from the Apollo 1 capsule that caught fire at Launch Complex 34 on Jan. 27, 1967. The astronauts were not able to escape the smoke and blaze inside the spacecraft before they asphyxiated despite their own efforts and those of numerous pad crew members who braved thick fumes and scorching temperatures to try to get the men out.

After seeing the hatches, visitors will walk through a gateway and down the same metal walkway astronauts used later to get to the Apollo spacecraft as it stood on a Saturn V rocket poised for the moon.

The new tribute to the crew of Apollo 1 who perished in a fire at the launch pad on Jan. 27, 1967 during training for the mission is shown looking down the length of the area. Credits: NASA/Kim Shiflett

The three-part hatch that was in place on the Apollo 1 spacecraft is shown in a tribute to the crew of Apollo 1 who perished in a fire at the launch pad on Jan. 27, 1967 during training for the mission.
Credits: NASA/Kim Shiflett

I heard about it when I was playing AMSO/NASSP a few years back. I was born in 1999, so I have no idea of how terrifying the fire was. Anyway, I think we have learned a lesson. Spaceflight is always full of uncertainties. One cannot predict what will happen tomorrow.