Apollo 1: Fortieth Anniversary

[Jason Thompson]

Today (January 27th) in 1967, a routine test of the first manned Apollo spacecraft turned into tragedy as a fire in the spacecraft claimed the lives of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee.

Apollo was a mess at the time, with pressure to get it flying and friction between NASA and North American Aviation Space Systems Division causing seemingly endless problems. The continual design changes in the spacecraft mean that more often than not the crew were training in simulators that were not faithful replicas of the vessel they would eventually fly. In exasperation one day, Grissom hung a lemon on the simulator to express his dissatisfaction.

On January 27th the three astronauts entered the spacecraft for a 'plugs out' test. They would be sealed inside the vessel atop its unfuelled Saturn IB rocket, and all the electrical umbilicals would be disconnected to verify that its own power systems worked. Inside, the crew were in full spacesuits, helmets sealed and breathing from the oxygen supply. The cabin interior was pressurised with pure oxygen to slightly more than sea-level atmospheric pressure to simulate the positive internal pressure and check capsule integrity throughout the test. During a hold in the test while problems with the comm systems were worked on, a spark ignited some nylon netting, and in the pure oxygen atmosphere the fire spread rapidly. The crew tried to open the hatch, but it took two minutes to open under ideal circumstances, and within thirty seconds the air hoses had been ruptured and toxic gas asphyxiated the astronauts. Even had they been able to undo the latches, the hatch opened inwards. With the soaring temperature and pressure in the capsule they could never have opened it. Seconds later, the temperature and pressure rose too high for the capsule to contain and it ruptured, pouring fire and toxic fumes into the room where technicians were trying to open the capsule from outside.

The resulting enquiry almost killed Apollo. In retrospect the test, which had been performed on all spacecraft since the first days of Project Mercury, was a disaster waiting to happen. Politicians who had campaigned against the huge expediture of the project attacked NASA visciously. But in the end the program continued. Ironically, the disaster provided the focus needed to pull the project together and reach the Moon by the end of the decade as Kennedy had promised.

Roger Chaffee was a rookie astronaut, but had shown sufficient promise to be offered the first manned flight of Apollo. Ed White had flown in Project Gemini, being the first American to make a spacewalk on Gemini IV. Gus Grissom was one of the original Mercury astronauts, the second to fly, and the first to be asked to fly in all three of NASA's space programmes, Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. He flew the first manned Gemini spacecraft, performing the first orbital manoeuvres ever. He was assigned to the first manned Apollo flight, and it is likely he could have been chosen as the first to have a chance of walking on the Moon. All three were buried with full military honours, and a memorial to them still stands at the launch complex on which their rocket sat when the accident occurred.

"If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." - Gus Grissom, 1926-1967

[WhiteCrow]

The irony was Gus was almost killed by a hatch which opened early on a previous mission, this time he was killed by a hatch which wouldn't open ...

Ouch - and today is the 21st anniversary of the Challenger disaster ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_S...enger_disaster

And in the week following we also have the 4th anniversary of Columbia ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia

All in all not a good period for NASA.

[Carol Baynes]

"If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." - Gus Grissom, 1926-1967

Wonderfully worthy post, Jason. Thank you!

[Captain Tancredi]

The irony was Gus was almost killed by a hatch which opened early on a previous mission, this time he was killed by a hatch which wouldn't open ...

Ouch - and today is the 21st anniversary of the Challenger disaster ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_S...enger_disaster

And in the week following we also have the 4th anniversary of Columbia ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia

All in all not a good period for NASA.

Might that not be due to weather conditions in Florida being more suitable for launches at this time of year? Although Apollo 11 landed on the moon in July, didn't it? Just thinking that Florida gets more than its share of temperamental weather, which must affect launching dates.

[Arisia]

I have wondered why they continued to have launch dates in January and February, since those are the months in Florida with highest chance of freezing temperatures, which definitely was a contributing factor in the Challenger disaster. Of course, the fact that the Shuttle is a 30 year old system at this point doesn't help either.

[WhiteCrow]

I have wondered why they continued to have launch dates in January and February, since those are the months in Florida with highest chance of freezing temperatures, which definitely was a contributing factor in the Challenger disaster. Of course, the fact that the Shuttle is a 30 year old system at this point doesn't help either.

Probably because they learnt their lessons, although at a huge personal cost to the families of those crews.

You really should watch a documentary on the problems and warnings prior to the Challenger disaster and how kind of office politics sentanced those guys to death. I think it was called "Challenger - countdown to disaster".

It was a highly recommended documentary in our old office just because we're all engineers and it really raises questions about engineering ethics, something being a third generation engineer I've grown up with all my life.

[Jason Thompson]

Might that not be due to weather conditions in Florida being more suitable for launches at this time of year? Although Apollo 11 landed on the moon in July, didn't it? Just thinking that Florida gets more than its share of temperamental weather, which must affect launching dates.

Weather conditions do have an influence on launch dates, certainly, but it is often surprising what kind of weather a rocket can be launched into. In the case of Challenger the cold was definitely a factor, but not so with Columbia as far as the investigation could tell. Apollo 1, of course, could have happened in the height of summer for al the difference it would have made, since the rocket was never even planned to be launched when the disaster occurred, and was unfuelled.

Apollo 12 was the demonstration of why you shouldn't launch in a thuderstorm. Seconds after liftoff it was struck by lightning, which knocked out the electrical system on the Apollo spacecraft. Fortunately the systems on the Saturn V itself were not affected and the crew were able to reset the spacecrfat systems on reaching orbit. The remaining item of concern was the pyrotechincs on the parachutes. There was no way to test them and they could have been useless. Eventually the mission controllers reasoned that if the parachutes were useless the crew would be just as dead if they re-entered straight away as if they did so after going to the Moon and back, so they might as well go to the Moon! Of course the 'chutes were fine and Apollo 12 was a successful mission, albeit without TV since one of the crew inadvertently burned out the video camera tube by pointing it at the sun.

The scary thing is that, if you read the Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia accident reports, the same problems are evident in all three accidents. Not the physical causes, of course, which were all completely different, but the management attitudes. In all three cases, the attitude to safety seems to have been 'we've done it before without any trouble, therefore it must be safe'. In all three cases they were proved disastrously wrong.

Spaceflight is risky, as Grissom pointed out. More than that, it is one human endeavour where things that go wrong usually do so in a spectacular and/or deadly fashion. While we must certainly never shirk safety concerns, we must not let the fact of death put us off trying. How many people died during the early years of aviation, and still die today testing new aircraft? Where would we be now if those deaths had conviced everyone that powered flight was too dangerous and should be abandoned?

[Jason Thompson]

Wonderfully worthy post, Jason. Thank you!

Thank you, Carol.

[Rob McCow]

That's all very interesting. Thanks for putting it up