50 years after fire, NASA honors Apollo 1 crew

Fifty years ago on Friday, Sheryl Chaffee's mother told her that her father would never be coming home again.

Roger Chaffee and Apollo 1 crewmates Gus Grissom and Ed White had been killed by a flash fire that swept through their capsule that evening in 1967, during what was considered a routine countdown simulation on the pad at Cape Canaveral’s Launch Complex 34.

“My little 8-year-old world was torn apart,” Chaffee remembered Thursday during a memorial ceremony hosted by the Astronauts Memorial Foundation and Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

Family members, current and former astronauts and NASA officials gathered for the space agency’s annual Day of Remembrance to honor the fallen crews of Apollo 1, space shuttles Challenger and Columbia, and seven others killed in aircraft accidents.

On the fire's 50th anniversary, NASA and the Visitor Complex on Friday will open a new exhibit remembering the Apollo 1 crew and highlighting the lessons learned that ultimately enabled Americans to land on the moon and return home safely less than three years later, fulfilling President Kennedy’s goal.

“Without it, very likely we would have not have landed on the moon as the president had wished by the end of the decade,” said Michael Collins, command module pilot for the first moon landing mission in 1969.

Along with personal mementos from the Apollo 1 crew members, the exhibit titled “Ad Astra Per Aspera. A Rough Road Leads to the Stars,” housed at the Apollo-Saturn V Center, displays for the first time in public a piece of the charred capsule that has been stored at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia since the accident investigation.

On display is the spacecraft’s multi-part hatch, whose cumbersome design essentially trapped the three men in an inferno after a spark ignited the command module's high-pressure, pure oxygen atmosphere. The hatch is shown alongside the safer one that replaced it.

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“We learned an awful lot from that evening, and it made for a safer program,” said John Tribe of Merritt Island, an engineer who was monitoring the spacecraft when the fire broke out.

Several family members said they appreciated the overdue Apollo memorial at KSC, which last year opened the “Forever Remembered” tribute to shuttle crews near the retired orbiter Atlantis.

“It’s very fitting,” said Chaffee, who recently retired from a NASA career at KSC. “We all feel like it’s about time. And it’s just perfect.”

Lowell Grissom, Gus’ brother, said he hoped the exhibit would inspire young people, noting the example that Gus set.

“You don’t have to be from a rich family or a big town to accomplish great things,” said Grissom, 83, of St. Louis. “I hope they take that message away.”

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Collins remembered Grissom for his flight experience and love of complex machines; White as an outspoken patriot who believed in the Apollo mission’s importance to the country; and Chaffee as a studious pilot as interested in the moon’s geology as he was in getting there.

“To each of you who knew these three men so well, thank you for your sacrifices,” Collins said in an emotional conclusion to his remarks. “The Apollo crew was magnificent.”

Apollo astronaut Charlie Duke read the names of 24 astronauts who have died in the line of duty, followed by a moment of silence.

Outside at the Space Mirror Memorial, an F-104 jet roared overhead three times, shooting skyward on its final run in tribute to Grissom, White and Chaffee.

Sheryl Chaffee, Lowell Grissom and Bonnie White Baer, Ed White’s daughter, were among family members who placed a wreath before the polished granite mirror. Guests placed roses and carnations in the fence bordering the monument.

“I cannot believe that it has been 50 years since I lost my father, along with his Apollo 1 crewmates, Gus and Ed,” Chaffee said during the ceremony. “Although on that January day they lost their lives right across the river at Complex 34 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, their story certainly did not end there and their legacy lives on today.”

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com.And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdeanand on Facebook at facebook.com/jamesdeanspace.