Sunday, January 26, 2014

27 Jan 1967

27 Jan 1967, 47 years ago, Virgil Grissom, Ed White & Roger Chaffee died in a ground test of an Apollo capsule. Ad astra per aspera!

Grissom, L, had flown in Mercury and Gemini; White, center, made the second walk in space; Chaffee was a rookie and had not yet flown in space. Capsule fire in high-pressure oxygen atmosphere. Capsules remained 100% oxygen throughout the Apollo programme, but pressure was reduced to 5psi in the cabin with no ill effects to crew over week-long-plus voyages. The Apollo 13 explosion was not a result of capsule oxygen at 100%.

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