The fire that may have saved the Apollo programme
Fifty years ago, a fire broke out during a test of the rocket that would take men to the Moon. Three astronauts died on the launch pad – but their deaths were not in vain.
Richard Hollingham
One of Nasas most celebrated astronauts, Lt Col Virgil Gus Grissom was becoming increasingly frustrated with his latest mission. He had every reason to be angry.
A former fighter and test pilot, Grissom was the second American to launch into space (the third overall). In March 1965, he became the first astronaut to return to space as commander of Nasas new two-man Gemini spacecraft. A year later, he was selected as the first commander of Apollo the spacecraft being designed to eventually take a crew to the lunar surface and return them safely to Earth.
If all went to plan, Grissom would be in line to lead a mission to the Moon. Right now, however, even getting Apollo 1 off the ground was proving a challenge.
The flight had been plagued with problems, says Gerry Griffin, a guidance navigation and control systems officer later a flight director for the Apollo missions. When the Apollo 1 spacecraft was delivered to Cape Canaveral, it was not in a good shape and they had to do a lot of work to get it ready.
The Apollo missions were planned in two stages. Apollo 1 was the first manned mission in the Block 1 programme. Built by North American Aviation, it was designed to test a crew of three and a multitude of new spacecraft systems in orbit around the Earth. Apollo spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts to the Moon would be built in Block 2.
This was a hugely complicated spacecraft compared to anything theyd built before, says Allan Needell, Apollo Curator at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. There was a lot of testing and going back and forth, some of the work was substandard.
There were deficiencies in the wiring, leakages of coolant, failures in the life support system and glitches with the radios
In fact there were deficiencies in the wiring, leakages of coolant, failures in the life support system and glitches with the radios.
They were having problems with quality control, problems with deadlines, problems with testing, says Needell. By the time [the Apollo 1 capsule] was built they were having communications problems it was bedeviled with issues.
Even the astronauts themselves thought the capsule was a lemon. On 22 January, Grissom had a short break from training and returned to his home in Houston. Before he left, he plucked a lemon from the tree growing in his front yard. Back at Cape Canaveral, he hung it outside the hatch of the Apollo 1 simulator. The Apollo programme was not in good shape.
13:00 27 January 1967, Launch Complex 34
The Plugs-Out Integrated Test was designed as a full simulation of the Apollo launch, overseen from both the control centre at Cape Canaveral and mission control in Houston. The only difference between this and a real launch would be that the Saturn rocket beneath the crew was empty of fuel.
It was a full-up dress rehearsal, we were fully manned, says Griffin, who was at his console in Houston. We counted down to zero, it was very realistic.
As commander, Grissom entered the command module first and took his place in the left-hand seat. Roger Chaffee was next, with the seat on the right, followed by Ed White, who, as command module pilot, took the centre couch.
White had distinguished himself during Gemini 4 in 1965, when he had become the first American to walk in space. A highly qualified naval pilot, Chaffee was the only rookie astronaut on the crew.
Almost as soon as they had settled into their seats, the test ran into problems. As the crew hooked their spacesuits up to the oxygen supply, Grissom reported a sour smell like buttermilk and the simulated count was held so samples could be taken and analysed. With nothing seemingly wrong with the air supply, an hour and 20 minutes later, the spacecraft hatch was finally sealed shut.
This complex hatch was made up of three sections an inner section to seal the spacecraft, a heatshield door and a further door on the cowling. This outer part would be jettisoned after launch. It took several minutes to get the whole arrangement in place and secured.
Almost as soon as they had settled into their seats, the test ran into problems
As countdown resumed, the air in the capsule was replaced with pure oxygen. The oxygen was maintained at higher pressure inside the capsule than outside. This simulated the increased pressure of the spacecraft in orbit and allowed the astronauts to breathe comfortably.
Both the single-man Mercury and two-man Gemini capsules had followed the same procedure without incident. It was so routine that the safety manual for testing the spacecraft made no reference to the hazards of strapping a crew into an experimental space capsule in a pressurised oxygen environment.
17:40, Apollo 1 spacecraft
There had been problems all day with communications between the ground and spacecraft, which was only a few hundred metres away from the control centre on the launch pad.
As the countdown continued and more systems were switched across to Apollo 1, at times it was impossible to make out what the astronauts were saying. I remember Gus Grissom got very exasperated, recalls Griffin. He was really mad.
Jesus Christ, Grissom exclaimed. How are we going to get to the Moon if we cant talk between two or three buildings?
After more than four-and-a-half hours bunched-up on their couches in the cramped spacecraft, the count was once again put on hold as the crew attempted to troubleshoot the communications system and isolate the problem.
Finally, at 18:10, the countdown was held at T-10 minutes, ready for the final transfer to internal power.
18:31, 17:31 local time, mission control Houston
They stopped to fix the comm problems and we all stood up and most people went to take a break, says Griffin. For some reason I left my headset on and I heard a noise, kind of a static, then a quiet period of a second.
Then, he says, I heard the word fire from the crew and that was about all.
Guidance officer, Manfred Dutch von Ehrenfried, was at a nearby console. We couldnt believe what we were hearing, he says. Did you hear what I hear? Did you hear that?
It took us several minutes to figure out there had been a fire in the spacecraft Gerry Griffin, Nasa
I yelled at a couple of the guys, says Griffin. Hey, theres something going on!
I thought it might have meant a pad fire down on the ground or something, he says. Then as one thing led to another, everyone came back in and it took us several minutes to figure out there had been a fire in the spacecraft.
18:31 Cape Canaveral, Apollo 1 spacecraft
Fire, I smell fire, the first
indication from the capsule that something was wrong. It is unclear whether the voice is Chaffee or White. Fire in the cockpit.
Within seconds the fire had broken from its point of origin, stretching in a wall of flames along the left side of the module. The flames rose vertically and spread across the cabin ceiling, scattering beads of molten nylon from straps and fastenings onto the crew. BBC
