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Today Marks 50th Anniversary of Fatal Apollo 1 Disaster (nasaspaceflight.com)
schwit1 writes: NASASpaceFlight.com reports: "Fifty years ago Friday, the first -- but sadly not the last -- fatal spaceflight accident struck NASA when a fire claimed the lives of Virgil 'Gus' Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Ed White during a training exercise at Launch Complex 34. The accident, a major setback for the struggling Apollo program, ushered in the first understanding of the 'bad day' effects of schedule pressure for spaceflight and brought with it words and reminders that still echo today." The article provides a very detailed and accurate look at the history and causes of the accident, as well as its consequences, which even today influence American space engineering. Are there any Slashdotters who were old enough to remember the incident? If so, we'd love to hear your take on the disaster. Where were you when the news broke and how did it affect you and the country at that time...?
I remember bits of it. I was in 3rd grade at the time. We had been talking about it at school in science class all week. It was late in the week, Thursday or Friday. We had no tv in the school, but we had radio. I don't recall which class I was in at the time, but I remember listening to early parts of the countdown on a radio the teacher brought to the classroom. After school, I had finished my homework and was watching something on tv before supper. A reporter broke in with a special announcement that the astronauts had burned to death. (They didn't really, they were asphyxiated inside their suits.) Mom heard that from the kitchen and came in and listened and then shut the tv off. The next day at school the morning prayer (Catholic school) was announced for the three astronauts' souls and their families left behind. That Sunday's mass was also dedicated to the tragedy. Up to that point, my friends and I used to talk about being astronauts, and who would get to go first. Several of them were no longer so excited about it within a few days. A few years later I was glued to the tv watching Apollo 11. Of that group of friends, I'm the only one that actually went into an aerospace field.
First, wow, so many trolls... can't we get rid of some of this garbage?
There's a lesson to be learned here. In a lot of fields, scientific research isn't safe. It's for the advancement of science and hopefully the betterment of the world that we put our lives at risk. I see people calling for SpaceX to be grounded and ridiculing them for their failed launch. These are complex systems, and sometimes things go wrong that have unexpected consequences. It's unfortunate, but it's a risk we take, and without the early attempts at spaceflight, there is no Apollo 11, shuttle, or ISS.
This sort of thing happens in other branches of science, too. I am a meteorologist and I study tornadoes. That means chasing storms and, sometimes, getting close to the business end of a supercell thunderstorm to collect data. And yes, researchers occasionally do get killed, as unfortunately happened to Tim Samaras a few years ago. It's not safe out there, but it's because of research like that, that we're quickly moving toward a dramatic shift and perhaps a large improvement in how we issue severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings. Look up warn-on-forecasting if you're curious. We need the data to better understand the processes involved with tornado formation and what distinguishes tornadic supercells from non-tornadic ones. People have called for bans on storm chasing and ridicule the type of research meteorologists do as fringe science, but it may well save a large number of lives in the coming decades. It's not safe out there, but it doesn't mean we should walk away, give up, or ban the scientific research.
Should we have banned chemistry and research on radioactive elements because it led to the deaths of many scientists? We're better off that we didn't do that. Would we be better off giving up on tornado research and not trying to improve warning lead times? I think not. And we shouldn't try to put an end to the work SpaceX is doing, despite an accident and some noisy critics.
I first became aware of humans in space when I saw a Time magazine with a picture of John Glenn in Time magazine cover in hour house. While I was too young to appreciate the functional evolution of the US space program (suborbital to orbital flight, single-seat to multi-seat capsules, increasing task complexity --including EVAs--, docking with other craft), I did realize the goal of the Apollo program was to carry astronauts to the moon.
I didn't understand the baby steps needed to get there. As a kid, I'd imagine mission control with a surprise announcement to the crew: "Good news; we're moving up the schedule and sending you guys TODAY instead of evolving and learning for two more years".
The coverage of the Apollo 1 disaster that I remember focused on the explosion resulting from the choice of 100% oxygen for the capsule environment.
Sometime during the frenzy of the Gemini/Apollo era, some the elementary schools where we lived then were named after astronauts. To my surprise, these schools (in Old Bridge, NJ) still carry these names 50 years later: Carpenter, Copper, Grissom, McDivitt. Schirra, Shephard.
A few years ago, I took one of the tours of Kennedy that includes access to the historic Mercury and Apollo launch sites, including the pad where the Apollo 1 crew had died. Very sobering.
I was in my teens, living with my foster family in California. We were returning from a grocery shopping trip when the news broke on the radio. My foster father, who personally knew Gus Grissom and Ed White, broke into tears and had to pull over and stop the car.
Despite his earlier warnings to his supervisors about the hazards of testing with atmospheric pressure pure oxygen environments, the tests continued - as he was 'only' a field engineer for NASA.
Was really a sad day, with many tears and spiteful comments about the lack of real leadership qualities in the top bureaucracy of NASA at that time.
Sadly, even though there were SOME changes, and even some GOOD changes, they didn't last long, and we were soon back in the same 'good old boy' network of leadership that does nothing for the program unless it pins a feather on the cap of a supervisor somewhere in the bureaucratic hierarchy.
Continuing this sad tale, we saw the loss of a launch because of faulty O-ring design caused by small, but significant, warpage from the weight of the vehicle resting on its side during the O-ring installation. This issue had already been seen to be marginal - with one after-launch diagnostic showing that the booster was within seconds of burning through - with the tragic results that happened when a later booster DID burn through.
And then, there was the loss during re-entry from another vehicle because of icing issues - even though NASA had a waiver to continue using freon for de-icing which would have eliminated this problem, but changed to a different, less effective, but MORE Politically Correct compound. Granted, the actual icing issue didn't cause the loss, but the ice build-up and the impact of the ice-chunk DID result in another senseless, tragic loss.
Really gotta' love the bureaucrats, since they prove that normal humans can overcome even the worst of humanities faults and self-centered stupidity, and STILL succeed in the efforts to expand our frontiers.
Kinda' reminds me of the 'PC correct' idiot in purchasing that order bio-friendly cat litter for the packing of nuclear material - that caused the loss of the only long-term storage facility in the US because it ruptured - which WOULDN'T have happened if the idiot had just continued to use plain clay litter.
redneck geek
Actually, yesterday (1/27) was the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 1 fire. Today (1/28) is the 31st anniversary of the Challenger disaster. I know the story was probably posted yesterday and took a few hours to get through the queue, but BeauHD should have edited the headline to reflect that.
RIP to the men and women of both tragic missions.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
I've meet many people involved in getting men to the moon.
One was in charge of life support for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. Shortly before he died we had a long talk about Apollo 1. He was convinced that it was his fault that he didn't know that high O2 environment would have been highly flammable. There are likely a thousand guys who thought the same thing.
He also pointed out that USAF has a museum inside the Cape grounds and I should go see it.
Continuing this sad tale, we saw the loss of a launch because of faulty O-ring design caused by small, but significant, warpage from the weight of the vehicle resting on its side during the O-ring installation.
That's not what caused the O-ring failure, and the vehicle was attached vertically in the VAB, well after the SRBs were fully assembled and mated to the tank. The temperature at launch was below freezing, and about 25 degrees lower than any previous launch. The O-rings lost most of their flexibility due to the cold and failed to seal the joint as a result.
And then, there was the loss during re-entry from another vehicle because of icing issues - even though NASA had a waiver to continue using freon for de-icing which would have eliminated this problem, but changed to a different, less effective, but MORE Politically Correct compound. Granted, the actual icing issue didn't cause the loss, but the ice build-up and the impact of the ice-chunk DID result in another senseless, tragic loss.
The Columbia accident wasn't caused by ice either - it was a block of insulating foam that broke off from the tank and struck the orbiter. Very little ice ever formed on the external tank due to the insulation.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Yes, I remember. I was working for RCA downrange on a missile tracking ship. We were in Dakar, Senegal. Although I don't remember how I found out (since it was difficult to get news back in those days), I recall reading a book about the entire Apollo program (from and engineer's point of view) many years later and when I came to that part of the book - it brought tears to my eyes. The ship I was on spent a lot of time in port at Cape Canaveral and although I never actually saw any of the astronauts I heard about their exploits by locals. I hung out in a bar where Gus Grissom was reported to have hung out although I never saw him there. It was just off A1A on the turnoff that took one to Cape Canaveral.
The "more" aspect of this story is that the pure oxygen atmosphere was deemed "a solved problem" as it had been used during the Mercury and Gemini missions and had never posed a problem before. Note also that the astronauts were wearing pressure suits, and those were pressurized to 17psi pure oxygen - this remained the case even after the changes were made post-Apollo-1 to bring in a nitrogen-oxygen mix during ascent (the cabin atmosphere was dumped when in orbit, and repressurised with 5psi oxygen - this was always the plan, so you are correct in that it needed to be pressurised at launch).
So the pure oxygen atmosphere never posed an issue before, mainly because the capsules were of higher quality than Apollo 1 turned out to be.