first loss

Apollo 1

Anyone who knows me is keenly aware that I am a NASA junkie. I would have loved to have been in the space program but I fear that two things would stand in my way - I am too tall and I'm probably not quite smart enough.

The crew was killed on the pad while doing a pre-flight check of the Apollo Command Module (CM). After the fire, major renovations were made to the CM to avoid such problems in the future. Unfortunately these three lost their lives as NASA learned how to go to the moon. It has been argued that without this tragic fire that perhaps we (mankind) would not have made it to the lunar surface. I hope that their loss paved the way for our gain.

This week is one of remembrance for NASA. It starts off with the loss of the Apollo 1 crew on January 27, 1967.

Gus Grissom
Ed White
Roger Chaffee