Apollo 1: The Fire That Happened Before Launch

On the evening of 27 January 1967, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were sealed inside their Apollo spacecraft on the launch pad for a routine rehearsal. The rocket wasn't even fuelled. At 6:31 p.m., the crew reported a fire. Within about fifteen seconds the cabin had split open, and the hatch that was their only way out was still shut. This is the story of why they couldn't get out. We go through the test nobody had classed as hazardous, a cabin filled with pure oxygen at just above atmospheric pressure, the nylon, Velcro and wiring the review board found inside, and a three-layer hatch that cabin pressure held firmly in its seat. We follow the fifteen seconds the review board reconstructed, and what NASA changed before anyone flew Apollo again. The primary source throughout is the Apollo 204 Review Board's 1967 report. The hatch did what it was designed to do. What failed was everything that was supposed to make sure it would never have to be opened in a fire. In memory of Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White II and Roger B. Chaffee. CHAPTERS 0:00 Cold open: 27 January 1967 0:59 The crew and the mission 2:12 The test nobody called hazardous 3:42 The atmosphere 5:21 The cabin 6:43 The hatch 8:00 The pressure 9:09 Fifteen seconds 11:00 The investigation 12:19 What changed 13:38 Conclusion Diagrams, the 3D hatch cutaway and the cabin plan are simplified illustrations, not to scale. Burn strips in the oxygen comparison are illustrative. Event times in the fire sequence are the review board's approximate reconstruction, not exact times of death. Pressures are given in atmospheres (absolute). SOURCES & CREDITS Primary source: Report of the Apollo 204 Review Board (NASA, April 1967). Short excerpts shown for commentary. Also: NASA SP-4205 "Chariots for Apollo"; NASA SP-4204 "Moonport"; NASA's response to the Review Board findings; NASA Office of Safety and Mission Assurance, "The Apollo 1 Tragedy" (2008). Archive photographs and film: • NASA (public domain). • U.S. National Archives: NASA film "KSC - AS-204 Accident Review Board Coverage" (Record Group 255) and photograph 255-CC-67-HC-121. • NASA films "Test by Fire" and "The Saturn IB Story": shown from enhanced (upscaled) third-party transfers of the original NASA footage. • Daderot via Wikimedia Commons: Apollo 1 inner hatch, Kennedy Space Center. CC0 (public domain dedication). • DLR (German Aerospace Center) via Wikimedia Commons: Liberty Bell 7 on display. CC BY 3.0 DE https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... • nbrach83 via Wikimedia Commons: Launch Complex 34 launch pedestal. CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... • A Geek Mom via Wikimedia Commons: Launch Complex 34, Apollo 1 crew memorial plaque. CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Images and footage were cropped, colour-graded, reframed and/or animated. Modified versions of CC BY-SA images are shared under the same licence. Music: YouTube Audio Library. Diagrams, animations, 3D reconstruction and sound design: History Under Load. #Apollo1 #NASA #SpaceHistory