Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia: Remembering NASA’s lost astronauts

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)

The middle of winter is a somber time of year for the spaceflight community. The three worst tragedies of NASA's manned space program fall within just six days on the calendar, from January 27 to February 1. Apollo 1, less than three years before Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the Moon. Challenger, watched live by millions around the world. Columbia—like Challenger before it, an avoidable accident rooted in NASA's internal culture.

Apollo 1: January 27 1967

NASA

The prime crew of Apollo 1, Virgil I "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White, II, and Roger B. Chaffee, during training in Florida.

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The loss of the Apollo 1 crew (along with the spacecraft) several weeks before its intended launch date was a severe setback for America's lunar ambition. Apollo 1 was supposed to carry Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee into low Earth orbit on February 21, 1967, the first launch in a series that would culminate in a pair of American astronauts walking on the Moon's surface in July 1969. Instead, all three suffocated when fire broke out in the Command Module during what was thought to be a low-risk test.

Both Grissom and White had been into space before; Grissom as one of the original Mercury Seven, White was one of NASA's second wave of astronauts—recruited for Gemini—which saw him become the first American to walk in space. Chaffee was part of NASA's third astronaut intake, and Apollo 1 was to be his first mission.

The accident occurred on January 27 during a test that involved the Apollo spacecraft running on internal power. Grissom, White, and Chaffee were strapped in and sealed into the command module. It's thought there was a spark from one of the myriad exposed wires which quickly turned into a fire, helped no end by the oxygen-enriched environment. The pressurized atmosphere (16.7psi, 2psi above ambient) inside the spacecraft held the capsule's inward-opening hatch in place, and it was not designed to be removed quickly. The fire prevented the astronauts from trying to vent the capsule's atmosphere. Even if they had, the system would not have coped with pressures that quickly reached 29psi.

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