Apollo One

Apollo One is the name given to the AS-204 spacecraft after it was destroyed by fire during a training exercise.

January 27, 1967 the crew of Apollo commonly known as Saturn 204 began training for the first Apollo mission. On this mission they were going to orbit Earth, they were scheduled to launch February 21. The AS-204 mission was scheduled for the first quarter of 1967, having already missed a target date for the last quarter of 1966.The shuttle was placed on launch pad 34 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

It was sitting on a Saturn 1B rocket. The shuttle was set on a launching pad as if they were going to launch it, but it wasn’t fueled. It was a simulation test to go through the launching actions. Astronauts Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom the second American astronaut to fly into space, Edward H.

White II the first American astronaut to "walk" in space, and Roger B. Chaffee a "rookie" astronaut on his first space mission.They began the process at 1:00PM. From the beginning they had a lot of problems (including communication failures); this delayed their practice run until 5:40PM. At 6:31PM they finally heard a voice that was believed to be Chaffee’s announced almost casually over the intercom: "Fire, I smell fire. " Two seconds later, Astronaut White's voice was more insistent: "Fire in the cockpit.

” It wasn’t very clear but it’s believed it said “I smell fire. ” The fire spread very quickly.The astronauts died of carbon monoxide asphyxia, with thermal burns. The high-pressure, 100% oxygen atmosphere for the test, wiring and plumbing flaws, flammable materials in the cockpit, an inward-opening hatch that would not open in this kind of an emergency, and the flight suits worn by the astronauts were the major hazards during this test flight.

The spacecraft technicians tried to run to the shuttle and save them, but before they could it collapsed sending up big black clouds of smoke.The Apollo hatch could only open inward and was held closed by a number of latches which had to be operated by ratchets. The cabin was latched several times and would take about 90 seconds to open, but it took the rescuers about 5 minutes to get them out. The crew did not make it, and probably passed away in the first 30 seconds or so from inhaling smoke and burns. The Apollo program was put on hold while they investigated the scene. The reason for the fire couldn’t be found.

They say that all the flammable material in the cabin and the oxygen-rich atmosphere didn’t help. After this tragic accident, many design changes were made to the structure of the shuttle. The changes were all worth the 21 month delay. The mission, originally designated Apollo 204 but commonly referred to as Apollo 1, was officially assigned the name "Apollo 1" in honor of Grissom, White, and Chaffee. The first Saturn V launch (uncrewed) in November 1967 was designated Apollo 4 (no missions were ever designated Apollo 2 or 3).The Apollo 1 Command Module capsule 012 was impounded and studied after the accident and was then locked away in a storage facility at NASA Langley Research Center.

The changes made to the Apollo Command Module as a result of the tragedy resulted in a highly reliable craft which, with the exception of Apollo 13, helped make the complex and dangerous trip to the Moon almost commonplace. The eventual success of the Apollo program is a tribute to Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, three fine astronauts whose tragic loss was not in vain.After removal of the bodies, NASA impounded everything at launch complex 34. On 3 February, NASA Administrator Webb set up a review board to investigate the matter thoroughly.

Engineers at the Manned Spacecraft Center duplicated conditions of the Apollo 204 without the crewmen in the capsule. They reconstructed events and the investigation on pad 34 showed that the fire started in or near one of the wire bundles to the left and just in front of Grissom's seat on the left side of the cabin -- a spot visible to Chaffee.The fire was probably invisible for about five or six seconds until Chaffee sounded the alarm. The exhaustive investigation of the fire and extensive reworking of the CMs postponed any manned launch until NASA officials cleared the CM for manned flight. Saturn 1B schedules were suspended for nearly a year, and the launch vehicle that finally bore the designation AS-204 carried a Lunar Module (LM) as the payload, not the Apollo CM.

The missions of AS-201 and AS-202 with Apollo spacecraft aboard, unofficially known as Apollo 1 and Apollo 2 missions, carried only the aerodynamic nose cone. In the spring of 1967, NASA's Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, Dr. George E. Mueller, announced that the mission originally scheduled for Grissom, White and Chaffee would be known as Apollo 1, and that the first Saturn V launch, scheduled for November 1967, would be known as Apollo 4. The eventual launch of AS-204 became known as the Apollo 5 mission.