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Apollo 1

Posted by michael on from the risks-of-pushing-the-boundaries dept.

Last year we looked at the Challenger. This year: Apollo 1. On January 27, 1967, the three-man crew of Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Ed White who were in training for the first Apollo flight were asphixiated in their capsule during a training exercise. The men reported communications glitches prior to the disaster, and it is believed that a spark in their pure-oxygen atmosphere quickly started an unstoppable blaze, consuming the many flammable components in the capsule. There were three hatches between the men and the outside of the capsule, which were not designed to be opened in less than 90 seconds. In addition, it is doubtful that the astronauts could have opened the internal hatch at all since pressure inside the spacecraft rose rapidly after the fire, exceeding the capacity of the pressure-equalization valves. Future designs were modified to remove most of the flammable components from the crew area and include a new quick-opening hatch. NASA has a retrospective.

10 of 237 comments (clear)

  1. Good eatin' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Nothing like a little Astronaut Flambe to satisfy those cravings. Just like grandma used to make! My mom used to make Astronaut Nuggets, fried-a-licious.

    Do you think they froze any, and maybe it's available on the NASA web site?

  2. Rosaviakosmos, anyone? by Guppy06 · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Maybe I haven't been paying attention closely enough, but I don't recall seeing articles commemorating the deaths of cosmonauts on /.

  3. You're all wrong... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Y'all r stupid... we never landed on the moon. I had read such things on the web, but it took some serious reporting on the part of the Fox Network to really convince me. Anyway, Gus & Co. were killed because they were about to blow the lid on the whole thing...

    1. Re:You're all wrong... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

      A studio set up in the Nevada desert. As much as I want to believe the government would never do this, I can't. They're professional liars. Not to mention, there's so much evidence that it was, in fact, a hoax. Look up "moon landing hoax" on google.

  4. Re:Leave it to the Americans ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    You are absolutely right. You are a Merkin. As a Merkin, you no longer qualify as a member of the human race and should be denied the accompanying right.. Also, Merkins are not permitted to have any rights as individuals.

    Please stand still while I give you and your American heroes a good assfucking.

  5. Re:A Tribute to the Pioneers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Somebody please rid ./ of this pretentious cooler-than-though-art-fag shit.

  6. OK, now I'm disturbed... by Guppy06 · · Score: 2, Flamebait

    I make a one-line post about the apparent lack of attention to non-American deaths and I get smacked down as flamebait? I wasn't even intending to be flamebait!

    THIS is flamebait:

    If Apollo 11 can commemorate the deaths of Gagarin and Komarov alongside the friends they lost on Apollo 1, why can't I even reference Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 11 missions in passing on Slashdot?

  7. Hahahahahaha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    This is what we like to see! Americans made into toast! Wonderful! Why don't you all do this?

  8. LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    That was funny shit, they burned like a match.

  9. Microsoft to the rescue by Tablizer · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    (* ...were unable to convince the people at NASA through a series of confusing charts and misinformation.*)

    I sense a great angle here for a PowerPoint ad.

    "....if they had just used PowerPoint..."

    --
    Table-ized A.I.