How a bad case of ‘Go!’ fever may have caused Apollo 1 tragedy
Fifty years ago, on 20 July 1969, Apollo 11 became the first manned mission to land on the moon. In this extract from his book about the extraordinary scientific, engineering and human venture, Dr David Whitehouse reflects on an earlier mission, which had
Before the success of the Apollo 11 moon landing 50 years ago, there was the Apollo 1 disaster when three astronauts lost their lives. Gus Grissom, Ed White and rookie Roger Chaffee had been chosen for the first manned Apollo flight in the
run-up to missions to the moon. On 27 January 1967, at Pad 34 at Cape Kennedy, all three were in a so-called “plugs-out” test of the newly designed Apollo capsule, which was positioned above a Saturn 1B rocket. They were on their horizontal couches, sealed inside the capsule, breathing a highpressure 100 per cent oxygen atmosphere. At the time some astronauts suspected they were sitting in a deathtrap.
The Apollo spacecraft, dubbed Spacecraft 12 by its manufacturers, had a history of problems and had arrived late at the Cape. It was four weeks to the launch. The test was long and full of problems. Engineer John Moore said they were performing lots of tests and not really looking at the results. They were working very fast, in retrospect too fast. As the astronauts were being suited up for the test, their secretary, Lola Morrow, sensed a tension and a weariness. They didn’t want to do it, she said.
Visors down, they reached T-10 minutes in the simulated countdown. They were running through a checklist when a voltage spike was recorded at 6.30.54 pm. Ten seconds later Chaffee said “Hey” and scuffling sounds were heard. Grissom shouted “Fire”, followed by Chaffee, “We’ve got a fire in the cockpit”, and then White repeated, “Fire in the cockpit”. Seconds later Chaffee yelled, “We’ve got a bad fire! Let’s get out! We’re burning up! We’re on fire! Get us out of here!”
Technician Gary Propst could see Ed White on his monitor. He was trying to open the heavy, two-piece hatch. White had to use a ratchet to release six bolts. He barely had a chance to begin loosening the first bolt. In normal circumstances it would have taken about 90 seconds. But with the heat, the fire and the noxious gases accumulating rapidly it was impossible. Only 21 seconds after the first indications of fire the transmission ended with a scream. Within seconds the pressure inside exceeded the capsule’s tolerance and it ruptured, filling the surrounding area with thick smoke. Pad leader Don Babbitt leapt from his desk, shouting at lead technician Jim Greaves to get them out, not realising they were already dead. “The smoke was extremely heavy,” Babbitt said, “heavy thick grey smoke, very billowing, but very thick.” None of the pad crew could see more than an arm’s length Later, 27 technicians were treated for the effects of inhalation.
Head of the astronaut office, Deke Slayton, and flight surgeon Fred Kelly arrived at Pad 34 within minutes. There was an additional problem. The heat might trigger the Saturn rocket’s escape tower. With
“I think everybody that was working that test knew things weren’t right”
the capsule still hot, the pad was cleared. It was six hours before the bodies were removed. Their flight suits were almost intact, not even blackened. They had all died from asphyxia when their oxygen hoses burned and their suits filled with poisonous smoke. Deke Slayton later described it as the “worst day” of his career.
Investigators discovered that the fire began under Gus Grissom’s seat, on the left side of the cabin, somewhere in the 30 miles of wiring. To this day no one knows what caused the initial spark. The inquiry found that the documentation was so poor that no one was even sure what was within the capsule at the time of the accident.
Mission Controller Gene Kranz felt things were going wrong before the accident. “I had done the shift prior to the fire, and things weren’t right that day, and I knew they weren’t right. And yet I continued on. I think everybody that was working that test knew things weren’t right. We weren’t ready! But nobody stood up and assumed the accountability and said, ‘We’re not ready. It’s time to regroup’.”
Astronaut Wally Schirra knew it as well. “I was annoyed at the way what became Apollo 1 came out of the plant at North American Aviation’s plant in Downey, California. It was not finished. And that, of course, caused this whole atmosphere of developing where I would almost call it a first case of bad ‘go’ fever. ‘Go’ fever meaning that we’ve got to keep going, got to keep going, got to keep going! And there were things going on I didn’t like at all. I was no longer annoyed; I was really pretty goddamn mad! There were glitches, electronic things that just didn’t come out right. That evening I debriefed with Apollo Spacecraft Programme Office Manager Joe Shea and Gus.
“And I said, ‘If there are any things that go wrong, like a glitch in the electronic circuits and bad sounds, scrub!’ Gus, I can recall saying, ‘If I can’t talk to the blockhouse, how the hell are we going to go to the moon with this damn thing?’ That’s how bad the communications were. He should have scrubbed. He didn’t. He was himself involved in ‘go’ fever.”
Nasa administrator James Webb was under a great deal of stress. Every day the press contacted him to respond to more and more rumours about Apollo 1. Was he hiding something? Webb was wounded, politically and personally. He was also losing confidence in Nasa’s senior management team.
The brutal fact is that by the time of Apollo 1 the project was an accident waiting to happen. The tragedy forced a complete overhaul of the spacecraft’s systems and procedures. Without it the United States would never have got to the moon “before the decade is out” as President Kennedy promised.
Astronaut Walter Cunningham remembers the aftermath of the accident: “All of a sudden the public and Congress was concerned, real concerned, about astronaut safety again. So, we fixed a lot of things and were able to fly a much better spacecraft. The one we flew was almost perfect! I mean, it was just – you couldn’t have asked for a better piece of hardware for the first time. And most of us believe that if there had not been that Apollo 1 fire, we would’ve lost some people in orbit.”
After the death of his colleagues Neil Armstrong, who was then nearly two years away from being told he would attempt the first lunar landing in Apollo 11, said, “We were given the gift of time. We didn’t want it.”