<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Things happened in rapid succession in the wake of the tragic Apollo 1 spacecraft fire that claimed the lives of astronauts Gus Grisson, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee on January 27, 1967.\u00a0 NASA administrator James Webb quickly conferred with his internal board of review to assess the best way to deal with the crisis.\u00a0 He summoned astronaut Frank Borman to the Cape but it took the Texas Rangers to track him down at a remote lake where he and his family were just settling in for a relaxing weekend at a friend\u2019s cabin.\u00a0 Webb himself headed to the White House to meet with President Johnson with two immediate goals in mind:\u00a0 get the President to authorize NASA\u2019s board of review to handle the investigation and to put Frank Borman in charge of the commission.\u00a0 Johnson and Webb sealed the agreement to do just that with a handshake.\u00a0 Webb never let on that he had already assembled his accident-review team the night before he met with the president.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Frank Borman was the ideal choice to head the NASA accident-review board.\u00a0 He was the second oldest in the second group of astronauts (known as the \u2018New Nine\u2019) and a veteran of a two-week long Gemini 7 mission he flew with Jim Lovell. \u00a0 Gemini 7 had been designed to test how the human body would hold up in space for the length of time an entire lunar flight would take.\u00a0 Borman was well respected as soon as he joined the program and the success of the G7 mission only increased his \u2018space cred\u2019 in the NASA family.\u00a0 In their book <\/span>Chasing the Moon <\/span><\/i>(2018, Ballantine Books), authors Alan Andres and Robert Stone describe Borman as one who, \u201cAvoided unnecessary chitchat, more often speaking with a calm but forceful authority that seldom prompted a rebuttal.\u00a0 A single ice-cold stare from his penetrating eyes could silence a room in seconds.\u201d\u00a0 As he flew his T-38 trainer jet from Houston to the Cape, air traffic controllers along the way noticed his NASA call sign and offered their condolences to him and the rest of NASA.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Years later, Borman explained his feelings upon arriving at the Cape in the wake of the accident:\u00a0 \u201c[A group of us] went out and got bombed that first night.\u00a0 I don\u2019t drink anymore, but that night I got bombed.\u00a0 We ended up smashing our glasses on the floor like flyers in some old time World War I movie.\u00a0 That was it, the next day we went to work on the investigation.\u201d\u00a0 After a trip to examine the damaged spacecraft still sitting on the launch pad, it was obvious the crew had no chance.\u00a0 Although their bodies and flight suits were not severely burned, the interior of the capsule was a charred mess.\u00a0 NASA made the mistake of releasing a press statement saying the crew had died \u2018instantly\u2019 but when the audio tapes were reviewed during the investigation,\u00a0 the team learned the Apollo 1 astronauts had survived long enough to radio, \u201cGet us out of here!\u201d\u00a0 The crew were suffocated by the cloud of toxic smoke that quickly filled the cabin.\u00a0 It was a mistake that would haunt the space agency’s credibility with the press and public for a long time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The discarded fire extinguishers and the twenty-six workmen who had fought the blaze (two ended up hospitalized) confirmed the ferocity of the fire.\u00a0 Andres and Stone describe the scene when Borman\u2019s group made their first inspection of the accident site:\u00a0 \u201cThe outside of the spacecraft was partially blackened with soot, and through the open hatchway Borman could see the center couch where Ed White had been lying a few hours earlier.\u00a0 In the air was a strong odor of burned paper and foam material.\u00a0 A layer of dark-gray ash covered everything on the left side of the spacecraft, while on the right there were flight manuals and other things that appeared slightly browned but otherwise untouched.\u00a0 In the center, prominently visible, were twin oxygen hoses that had been attached to White\u2019s space suit,\u00a0 Both showed signs of having been severed with a blade as White\u2019s body was removed.\u201d\u00a0 The position of the bodies showed the crew was in the middle of their emergency hatch opening procedure when they were overcome.\u00a0 As designed, the hatch took 90 seconds to open – 90 seconds too long for the doomed crew.\u00a0 It also opened inward and the increased pressure caused by the inferno prevented the bodies from being recovered until the blaze was out and the internal atmospheric pressure reduced enough to allow it to finally be unsealed.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first thing the review board did was to impound documents and data about the accident.\u00a0 Next, they began the process of collecting eyewitness accounts.\u00a0 As they examined the technical data, it soon became clear no single cause for the fire could be isolated.\u00a0 The Apollo 1 capsule was wrapped in a tarp, lowered from the top of the Saturn 1B rocket, and delivered to the vehicle assembly building.\u00a0 It fell on Borman to enter the spacecraft and dictate the position of every switch on the instrument panels to indicate their state at the moment the fire broke out.\u00a0 North American Aviation sent an identical spacecraft to the Cape so it too could be disassembled along with the one destroyed in the fire.\u00a0 It was a long, painstaking process and in the end, what the team found was disturbing.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The exact location of the spark that ignited the 100 percent oxygen atmosphere was impossible to pinpoint, but the cause of the accident was not.\u00a0 They determined the accident was the culmination of a series of bad decisions:\u00a0 the choice of the 100 percent oxygen atmosphere inside the capsule,\u00a0 the hatch design requiring 90 seconds to open from the inside, inclusion of combustible materials inside the spacecraft, and vulnerable electrical wiring were a few prime examples.\u00a0 Instances of poor installation, workmanship, and design also played their part.\u00a0 The most shocking conclusion, however, was the fire had been entirely preventable.\u00a0 Besides the factors already listed, the working relationship between NASA personnel and North American Aviation\u2019s management had deteriorated.\u00a0 To his displeasure, Director Webb discovered there were multiple times when safety-and-reliability memos about the state of the spacecraft had not been brought to him.\u00a0 The astronauts coined their own phrase to explain what happened:\u00a0 \u201cGo Fever.\u201d Putting the timeline before safety caused deficiencies in the spacecraft systems to be glossed over or ignored to keep the program from slipping behind schedule.\u00a0 \u201cGo Fever\u201d killed them.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It was left up to Frank Borman to sit in front of a congressional panel and answer their questions and, in some cases, act as a lightning rod for those who had cooled on the expensive lunar program.\u00a0 Then, as now, some representatives on the panel were more concerned with grandstanding for their constituents.\u00a0 They were less concerned about getting to the bottom of the accident than they were about appearing frugal for the voters.\u00a0 Webb himself told Borman, \u201cI don\u2019t want you doing anything to try and protect me or NASA.\u00a0 The American people have a right to know exactly the unvarnished truth, and I want you to tell them.\u201d\u00a0 It was fortunate that Webb had Borman as his frontman during the congressional hearings because his name, face, and biography were already known to the public.\u00a0 Borman still believed in the Manned Lunar Program and his candor in front of the congressional committee tipped the balance away from canceling the project completely.\u00a0 Andres and Stone described Borman\u2019s mission to save Apollo:\u00a0 \u201cBorman was valued as a direct, articulate witness, unafraid to speak his mind.\u00a0 Webb considered Borman the ideal public face of NASA:\u00a0 a humble, serious, hardworking, and patriotic American committed to fulfilling Kennedy\u2019s mandate.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Borman\u2019s testimony pointed to the flaws that were allowed to slip past NASA\u2019s management safeguards as the prime suspects for the accident.\u00a0 He also professed confidence that once the design weaknesses were corrected, they would have a better, safer spacecraft going forward.\u00a0 Borman went on the record stating, \u201c[He] would gladly fly the Apollo spacecraft with confidence after all the recommended changes had been made.\u201d\u00a0 Asked if NASA had enough confidence in their own program to continue, Borman turned the tables and asked the committee, \u201cI think the question is really, are you confident in us?\u201d\u00a0 Borman\u2019s comment tipped the scale even farther away from the panel voting to delay or cancel the program.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A few days earlier, a representative from West Virginia had called for sweeping changes in NASA\u2019s management.\u00a0 At the conclusion of Borman\u2019s closing comments, the same representative asked for a moment to speak, adding, \u201cMr. Chairman, I think we ought to end these hearings just as fast as possible and get on with the space program.\u201d\u00a0 The chairman responded, \u201cAmen\u201d and the chamber filled with applause.\u00a0 Borman made the rounds of the various network television political-discussion programs to assure the American public their findings would be acted on and the program would get back on track.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Borman\u2019s role in saving the Apollo program wasn\u2019t done yet.\u00a0 The Manned Spacecraft Center\u2019s director, Robert Gilruth, approached Frank as soon as he returned to Houston with a special request.\u00a0 Gilruth asked Borman to again step back from his astronaut duties temporarily and oversee the redesign of the Apollo spacecraft at North American (now Rockwell after a merger) in California.\u00a0 It would be Borman\u2019s job to make sure the contractors kept to NASA\u2019s\u00a0 \u2018zero-defects perfection\u2019 demands.\u00a0 What they had thought would be a many weeks long process stretched to nearly a year, but the timeline was acceptable:\u00a0 they could make a much safer vehicle and still have a chance at meeting Kennedy\u2019s goal of placing a man on the Moon and returning him safely before the end of the 1960s decade.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The American public\u2019s infatuation on the lunar landing program had cooled to a chilly 43 percent approval rating, but the project kept moving forward.\u00a0 Popular culture even jumped in to help keep the dream alive.\u00a0 In an episode of <\/span>Star Trek<\/span><\/i>, Captain Kirk convinces Dr. McCoy to undertake a dangerous experiment by harkening back to 20th Century history.\u00a0 Kirk asks McCoy, \u201cDo you wish that the first Apollo mission hadn\u2019t reached the Moon, or that we hadn\u2019t gone on to Mars and then to the nearest star?\u00a0 That\u2019s like saying you wish that you still operated with scalpels and sewed your patients up with catgut like your great-great-great-great grandfather used to . . .Risk.\u00a0 Risk is our business.\u00a0 That\u2019s what the starship is all about,\u00a0 That\u2019s why we\u2019re aboard her.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, NASA was now about to stake the entire future of the space program with another risky maneuver;\u00a0 one that had never been attempted before.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0After the Apollo 1 fire, a year had passed since the last Gemini test flight had been launched.\u00a0 Ordinarily, each component of a multi-stage rocket would be tested before they were stacked and launched as a fully integrated system.\u00a0 Von Braun\u2019s team had been working on the massive Saturn V rocket since Kennedy first challenged the nation to shoot for the Moon.\u00a0 George Mueller, the head of the Manned Space Program, approached von Braun after the Apollo 1 disaster and suggested something radical.\u00a0 When the new spacecraft was ready, Mueller wanted to test it by launching the unmanned capsule on a fully stacked Saturn V.\u00a0 Something like this had never been attempted during the development of rockets capable of reaching orbit.\u00a0 It would be a great time saver, but it was also a big risk.\u00a0 Failure would certainly doom Kennedy\u2019s timeline, if not the whole program.\u00a0 At 7:00 a.m. on November 9, 1967, Mueller got his wish and the American public tuned in to watch the unmanned Apollo 4 launch.\u00a0 The five F-1 engines on board the first stage sprang to life.\u00a0 The 363 foot rocket stack slowly climbed upward as the engines consumed fifteen tons of liquid oxygen and kerosene per second to produce enough thrust.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Again, Andres and Stone take up the tale:\u00a0 \u201cSitting in the press site, some of the journalists (who were stationed three miles from the launch pad) noticed that the corrugated-metal roofing covering the outdoor bleachers was beginning to vibrate, and reporters could feel the force of the concussive shock wave beating against their faces.\u00a0 While describing the launch on CBS, Walter Cronkite and a producer noticed the large window in their broadcast booth was starting to vibrate, and both attempted to keep it from dislodging.\u00a0 With the roar of the Saturn\u2019s engines crackling in the background,\u00a0 Cronkite yelled, \u2018This big glass window is shaking!\u00a0 We\u2019re holding it with our hands!\u00a0 Look at that rocket go!\u2019\u00a0 In the Launch Control Center, NASA engineers seated at their consoles watched as plaster dust from the ceiling fell on their workstations..\u201d\u00a0 Mueller had gambled and won.\u00a0 Von Braun\u2019s rocket performed flawlessly.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Once the first two stages were expended, the third stage was shut down and then relit in orbit, just as it would be if it were to continue to the Moon.\u00a0 The capsule was released and in the last critical phase, it re-entered the Earth\u2019s atmosphere at thirty-six thousand feet per second, again, replicating the same conditions it would face if returning from the Moon.\u00a0 The Apollo program was back on track.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first Russian launch to test their newest spacecraft, Soyuz, ended poorly.\u00a0 Cosmonaut Valdimir Komarov had endured a flawed mission that returned to Earth less than 24-hours after launch.\u00a0 The capsule\u2019s parachutes never fully deployed and Komarov became the first to die while participating in active space flight.\u00a0 After a second failure of the Russian\u2019s giant N-1 rocket, reported to be the vehicle they would use for their own manned lunar mission, the Soviets announced they would be pursuing robotic exploration of the Moon.\u00a0 Their announcement mentioned the folly of risking human lives to do the same work that robotic craft could do.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Frank Borman was soon summoned back to Houston.\u00a0 He was assigned one of the early Apollo flights that would test the craft\u2019s systems in Earth orbit.\u00a0 His crew on this flight would be fellow Gemini astronauts Bill Anders and Jim Lovell.\u00a0 When the CIA provided NASA with satellite photos of the massive N-1 rocket on a launch pad in Russia (before it exploded on the pad), Borman was offered another challenge.\u00a0 Instead of testing their spacecraft in Earth orbit, why not send Apollo 8 to circle the Moon?\u00a0 It was, after all, a craft designed to go to the Moon.\u00a0 It was a bold decision and the change of plans would insure the first humans to circle the Moon would not be wearing space helmets with CCCP emblazoned across their brow.\u00a0 The famous Christmas Eve broadcast from Apollo 8 as it orbited the Moon (where they read passages from Genesis as images of the Moon\u2019s surface played across TVs around the world) and the famous \u2018Earth-rise\u2019 photo taken on that mission are still mentioned as highlights of the flight.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Frank Borman retired from the astronaut corps on July 1, 1970 having spent 19 days, 21 hours and 35 minutes in space.\u00a0 He had a remarkable career but his role in turning the tragedy of Apollo 1 into the triumph of the entire Apollo Moon Landing program can never be forgotten.<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 For me, the worst part if the Apollo 1 fire was waiting for the program to restart . . . hence . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Things happened in rapid succession in the wake of the tragic Apollo 1 spacecraft fire that claimed the lives of astronauts Gus Grisson, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee on January 27, 1967.\u00a0 NASA administrator James Webb quickly conferred with his internal board of review to assess the best way to deal with the crisis.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2568"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2571,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568\/revisions\/2571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}