Apollo 1 Disaster: NASA's Most Tragic Failure

Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, Edward White II, and Roger Chaffee piloted the Apollo 1 mission. These three astronauts would have flown the first manned test flight of the Command/Service Module. That flight would have moved the path toward a lunar landing. The mission failed; the spacecraft caught fire during a routine "plugs out" test."plugs out" testthe three astronauts perished.

Grissom voiced concerns about the flight to his son, who almost expected his father to skip the mission. NASA managed to correct their mistakes and make future Apollo missions safer.correctmake future Apollo missions safer.

The full investigation after the fire showed numerous Apollo 1 problems existed before the fire. The NASA summary detailed this.NASA summaryCombustible materials throughout the craft, exposed wiring, and the pressurized oxygen in the cabin acted as an accelerant, causing the fire. Those were not the only spacecraft issues.

Thebad wiringThe bad wiring was noticeable and concerning before the test. One astronaut complained about it. Gus Grissom kept his complaints private, accepting the risks to avoid being removed from the mission. Another Apollo 1 issue involved communication. Just before the fire started, Grissom asked, "How do we get to the Moon if we cannot talk between two or three buildings?" A minute later, he sounded the alarm that the spacecraft was on fire.

To stay positive, some NASA workers said the fire, though upsetting, allowed them to land on the Moon two years later. Chris Kraft, the Apollo 1 flight director, stated this.toldArs Technica:

Unless the fire happened, landing on the Moon seems unlikely. We would not have reached the Moon during the 1960s. Too many management, personnel, and hardware problems existed in the program.

John Tribe, Apollo's spacecraft manager, echoed similar views toMotherboard: "Without their 1967 loss, we might not have reached the Moon, literally, because that accident taught us how to build a safer program."

TheheadlineofThe Washington Postarticle three days after the tragic fire read, "It Looks Like the Inside of a Furnace." The reporter saw inside the spacecraft and 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 killed the three astronauts inside the spacecraft in minutes. By the time people outside the command module opened it—at least 15 minutes after the last radio contact—it was too late. The three men suffocated.Within seconds, the inside of the cabin looked like a furnace..

An interview withArs TechnicaFlight director Chris Kraft heard the pilots' screams for help while he and ground control tried to open the hatch. The complex hatch should take 90 seconds to open under normal conditions. With fire raging in the capsule, it took about five minutes. By then, Chaffee, Grissom, and White were dead:

I heard their screaming voices in the cockpit. I heard them yell they were on fire. I heard them demand to get out. Then, dead silence on the pad. We knew they were dead in minutes; we were in serious trouble.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy promised to win the Space Race.This promise led NASA to cut corners.America the country would land on the Moon and bring the astronauts back by the decade's end. The race pressure affected everyone working on Apollo 1 and the Apollo program. NASA'sHaste drove this action.pushing to beat Russia to the Moon might have made them ignore safety problems. Faulty wiring that started the fire used machinery instead of hand-bundling asThis cost-cutting move occurred.This left the capsule open to short circuits.

The spacecraft arrived with over 100 "significant" engineering orders still unfixed. The crew and astronauts knew there were problems, but they did not complain for fear of being removed from the flight and losing their shot at landing the first man on the Moon.

The way Grissom, Gaffee, and White died was tragic and gruesome. The Apollo 1 incident report offers the only comforting fact from it:is that they died quickly.they died quickly.

Findings showed the men died from suffocation caused by toxic gas from the fire. They also died because theyalmost certainly lost consciousness before dying.they went unconscious before they died.

Six years before the Apollo 1 fire, an oddly similar accident happened in Russia.Valentin Bondarenko. In 1961, Soviet astronaut Bondarenko underwent a routine exercise in the Chamber of Silence, a pressurized chamber meant to test mental stability. When he got the signal the test ended, Bondarenko wiped adhesive from his face with rubbing alcohol. He then threw the alcohol-soaked cotton pad onto a hot plate coil, starting a fire.

Like Apollo 1, the high oxygen level in the chamber let the fire spread fast. Technicians opened the capsule and pulled out Bondarenko almost right away. He already had bad burns and died in the hospital the next morning.