This week marks the anniversary of one of NASA's worst accidents.
Three astronauts died in a horrifying launch pad fire 40 years ago this week.
It was Jan. 27, 1967, with only three years left to meet President John F. Kennedy's challenge of going to the moon before the end of the decade.The three crewmembers of Apollo 1 strapped in for a realistic launch pad test for the first launch of the Apollo moon ship when their sealed spacecraft caught fire inside and they were trapped.
The fire was believed to be caused by a spark from a frayed wire and fueled by the pure oxygen inside the Apollo capsule. Grissom, White and Chaffee were dead in 17 seconds.It took rescuers five minutes to open the hatch and when they did, they found the astronauts had struggled to get out, but the hatch was too cumbersome to operate.
posted by Shaun A. Saunders
Three astronauts died in a horrifying launch pad fire 40 years ago this week.
It was Jan. 27, 1967, with only three years left to meet President John F. Kennedy's challenge of going to the moon before the end of the decade.The three crewmembers of Apollo 1 strapped in for a realistic launch pad test for the first launch of the Apollo moon ship when their sealed spacecraft caught fire inside and they were trapped.
The fire was believed to be caused by a spark from a frayed wire and fueled by the pure oxygen inside the Apollo capsule. Grissom, White and Chaffee were dead in 17 seconds.It took rescuers five minutes to open the hatch and when they did, they found the astronauts had struggled to get out, but the hatch was too cumbersome to operate.
posted by Shaun A. Saunders
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