The review board identified several major factors which combined to cause the fire and the astronauts' deaths: An ignition source most probably related to "vulnerable wiring carrying spacecraft power" and "vulnerable plumbing carrying a combustible and corrosive coolant"
During a test on the launch pad, however, a fire erupted and rapidly asphyxiated all three astronauts. Some of the contributing factors to their deaths included a pure oxygen atmosphere that accelerated a fire, and a hatch that proved impossible for the astronauts to open quickly, although the causes were complex.
On Jan. 27, 1967, fire broke out at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 34. Fueled by an exhaustive and fast-burning oxygen-rich atmosphere, the Apollo 1 command capsule ignited from the inside out.
Pure oxygen was used in the case of the Apollo I because the alternative of using mixed gases did not allow for a breathable atmosphere. In addition, the fire safety checks assumed that there would be no flammable hazards that could pose any threat to the astronauts.
Perhaps the Apollo 1 fire could have been prevented if the United States had not been caught up in a race to get to the moon. On the other hand, it's important to remember that NASA was attempting to do something that had never been done before, and that comes with an inherent risk, Chiao noted.
The TLI placed Apollo on a "free-return trajectory" - often illustrated as a figure of eight shape. This course would have harnessed the power of the Moon's gravity to propel the spacecraft back to Earth without the need for more rocket fuel.
The mission never flew; a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 on January 27 killed all three crew members—Command Pilot Gus Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee—and destroyed the command module (CM).
27, 1967, with the deaths of Apollo 1 astronauts Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White, and Roger B. Chaffee in a flash fire aboard their spacecraft during a ground test on the launch pad.
Apollo 1 – 1967
A flash fire broke out in the command module of Apollo 204 during a simulated launch at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, killing astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee of asphyxiation.
The cabin was pressurized with 16.7 pounds per square inch (psi) of 100 percent oxygen, a pressure slightly greater than one atmosphere. With everything just as it would be on February 21, the crew went through a full simulation of countdown and launch.
"Fire!" Then a garbled transmission, and then the final plea: "Get us out!"
The first crewed launch of a Soyuz took place on April 23, 1967. Its single test pilot, Vladimir Komarov, was killed when the descent module's parachute failed to unfurl after reentry and the module crashed—the first human death during a spaceflight.
Two Apollo missions were failures: a 1967 cabin fire killed the entire Apollo 1 crew during a ground test in preparation for what was to be the first crewed flight; and the third landing attempt on Apollo 13 was aborted by an oxygen tank explosion en route to the Moon, which disabled the CSM Odyssey's electrical power ...
Charles Moss Duke Jr. (born October 3, 1935) is an American former astronaut, United States Air Force (USAF) officer and test pilot. As Lunar Module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972, he became the tenth and youngest person to walk on the Moon, at age 36 years and 201 days. Charles Moss Duke Jr.
"One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." (Neil Armstrong)
On Jan. 27, 1967, a fire swept through the Apollo 1 Command Module during a launch rehearsal test, tragically killing the three astronauts trapped inside. Astronauts Gus Grissom (left), Ed White (middle), and Roger Chaffee (right), died on Jan.
It was concluded that the most likely cause was a spark from a short circuit in a bundle of wires that ran to the left and just in front of Grissom's seat. The large amount of flammable material in the cabin in the oxygen environment allowed the fire to start and spread quickly.
The scorched Apollo 1 capsule remains locked away in storage. But NASA is offering visitors at Kennedy Space Center a look at the most symbolic part: the hatch that trapped Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee in their burning spacecraft on Jan. 27, 1967.
The investigation later revealed that the hatch opening procedures were way too difficult and took too long to be executed in an emergency. Furthermore, the inward-opening hatch was impossible to open under any pressure higher than normal atmospheric pressure — and the fire had boosted the cabin pressure significantly.
NASA: Expenditure on the Apollo missions 1968-1972
Apollo 11, the first mission to successfully land man on the moon, cost approximately 355 million dollars, and the final mission, Apollo 17, cost approximately 450 million dollars.
The board also interviews the witnesses and reviews the crew's autopsies. According to the final report issued on April 5, 1967, the crew suffered a cardiac arrest caused by high concentration of carbon monoxide. The third degree burns suffered were believed to occur mostly post-mortem.
Roger Launius, the former NASA chief historian and a former senior curator at the National Air and Space Museum, agreed, saying, “there is no evidence to support the assertion that he left a bracelet of his daughter on the moon.” Though apparently fiction, the moment is a critical one.
To date, only one country has succeeded in landing humans on the moon: the United States of America. As part of the Apollo space program, the United States has landed a total of 12 astronauts.
The demise was triggered when, in April 1970, an oxygen tank exploded two days after the launch of the Apollo 13 mission, threatening the lives of the astronauts on board. Missions after Apollo 17 were cancelled. But this was something of a pretext.
The command module of Apollo 13 entered Earth's atmosphere and splashed down on target on April 17 at 1:07 PM Eastern Standard Time. The mission has been referred to as a successful failure, in that all the crew members survived a catastrophic accident.