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00:00:01In the future of the world, the world is a world of human beings.
00:00:08The world is a world of human beings.
00:00:15The world is a world of human beings.
00:01:59One step, Project Gemini.
00:02:02In phase three of the project, Project Apollo, it carries three astronauts.
00:02:12Each phase is key to landing on the moon before the end of the decade.
00:02:22April 9th, 1959, Washington, D.C.
00:02:26This is a press conference.
00:02:28These seven young men will be the first astronauts.
00:02:32United States Project Mercury.
00:02:38People everywhere adopted those seven as total heroes, even before they made a space flight.
00:02:46And Gus was one of them.
00:03:02It was quite a surprise to Gus that all at once he was a celebrity, and I don't think that
00:03:08he ever really got used to that.
00:03:13He was a big hero in the little town of Mitchell.
00:03:22From a small town like Mitchell to have an astronaut, it was just magnificent.
00:03:27Everybody was so proud to even say they were from Mitchell after Gus, you know, did so well and became
00:03:35an astronaut.
00:03:39He met his wife in high school.
00:03:42They were high school sweethearts.
00:03:47Betty turned out to be a very strong woman.
00:03:51And she did a lot to help Gus in his career.
00:03:57Gus always wanted to be a pilot, and he wanted to be a jet pilot.
00:04:04He got his wings, and the Korean War was going on, so he was immediately sent over there.
00:04:17He flew 100 combat missions.
00:04:21He got shot at several times.
00:04:26He volunteered to fly more, but they said no and sent him home.
00:04:34When he came back, got into test flight, he really enjoyed flying different aircrafts.
00:04:40And NASA decided that the astronauts should come from military test pilots.
00:04:50And there were something like 300 that agreed to apply.
00:04:56And Gus was one of them.
00:05:03Man had his first great success in space when the Russians pushed a man across the threshold.
00:05:08He was Yuri Gagarin, the astronaut the Russians lionized as the first to orbit the Earth.
00:05:14It was the propaganda coup of the year.
00:05:29The press created the space race between the two major powers in the world.
00:05:40It immediately became almost like a contest, like a sporting contest, if you will, in that they were out to
00:05:49defeat us and we were out to defeat them.
00:05:54I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a
00:06:02man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.
00:06:06No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range
00:06:13exploration of space.
00:06:18In 1961 then, President Kennedy said, we want to go to the moon and we're going to do it in
00:06:23this decade.
00:06:27And I can remember even then thinking, can we do that in nine years from a standing start?
00:06:49When they started building Mercury, everything was new.
00:06:57And these were new, bright, young engineers, and it was kind of a, we'll try this and see if this
00:07:05works, and if it doesn't, we'll try something else.
00:07:10It's Captain Virgil Gus Grissom raring to go.
00:07:20A pat on the back from Colonel Glenn in reserve, enters the capsule at Cape Canaveral.
00:07:25It must be pretty lonely in there.
00:07:31Three, two, one.
00:07:35Let's go!
00:07:46We'll get to the beginning of the episode.
00:07:51We got to do it.
00:07:53We got to the end.
00:07:54Kevin is 8.
00:07:55Now let's go!
00:07:5627 amps.
00:07:59Roger, picture 6-2, and trajectory is good.
00:08:02Oh, roger, it looks good in here.
00:08:07Oh, boy, the sky is very, very black, and the sun is really bright.
00:08:15There's a lot of stuff floating around up here.
00:08:18I haven't seen any land anyplace yet.
00:08:22The capsule is coming around into orbit.
00:08:25At Attitude.
00:08:28Oh, there I see the coast.
00:08:36Roger, I am in reentry attitude.
00:08:40East of the building.
00:08:41We're up to 6.
00:08:43All right, 0-4-1-4-7-E.
00:08:45That main chute is good.
00:08:46We're getting ready for impact here.
00:08:48You can see the water coming right on up.
00:09:15I've watched it much like everybody else did on TV.
00:09:19He was very close to getting drowned, with the helicopter beating down on him while it tried to lift the
00:09:23capsule, which was filling up with water.
00:09:30The helicopter that was trying to pick up the spacecraft grappled in just like they normally did, but it was
00:09:36getting so heavy they couldn't pick it up.
00:09:44And the helicopter engine overheated, and they finally had to cut it loose and let it go.
00:10:00Gus was lucky to live through that.
00:10:04It was embarrassing to him whether he did or did not cause it.
00:10:07He knew he was going to get blamed, and that lived with him for a long time.
00:10:16We talked about that.
00:10:18He said, I was just sitting there, and all at once, pow, the thing blew.
00:10:26The press and the media are sometimes not too courteous.
00:10:35Some of them are very aggressive, looking in windows, all that sort of thing.
00:10:42And so he had this house built, and he had no windows in the front.
00:10:48That was done purposely.
00:11:15Adaptive firing of a monster rocket heralds the next step into space beyond Earth.
00:11:19This is Saturn, America's giant missile of the future.
00:11:23It's the work of a man who now is one of the most important figures in America's space program.
00:11:2848 years old, Ferner von Braun.
00:11:32Dr. von Braun, this is only roughly half the size of a finished Saturn, this enormous machine above us, is
00:11:38it not?
00:11:38Yes, this is what we call the first stage.
00:11:40There will be two more stages mounted on top of this.
00:11:43Von Braun had been brought to this country at the end of World War II.
00:11:47They've been blowing up London for months and months.
00:11:53And so a large number of his people got into there and surrendered to the U.S.
00:11:57where he might continue what he was doing.
00:12:02What Von Braun did was extremely important to the future of spaceflight at that time.
00:12:15I can remember saying, by golly, we're going to do this.
00:12:20We're going to, if we don't do it, we're going to die trying.
00:12:41Field operations will be staffed with Colesman representatives at North American Aviation,
00:12:46White Sands, the Mann Space Center, AC Spark Plug, MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, and Kate Kennedy.
00:12:56Unfortunately, in this world, as you expand your knowledge, as you expand your capability,
00:13:04the interfaces begin to mount.
00:13:09Interfaces that are outside of your organization, much less inside your organization.
00:13:13So you've got to make sure that we are keeping up with what they're doing over there.
00:13:20How do we tell the spacecraft designers what we need?
00:13:24They don't know how to do it either.
00:13:27They're asking you questions every day.
00:13:30What you want them to do, how you want them to do it, what is it supposed to do,
00:13:34who's got the mission planned?
00:13:35That's a great question.
00:14:00Dad was selected in the second group of nine astronauts,
00:14:04which was probably the best moment of all our lives. As a son of an astronaut,
00:14:11that was like a special event, you know, how can you believe that?
00:14:19Ed stood out. Ed fit in perfectly. He was tall, great looking, and he was just an image that you
00:14:30thought about it. That's who I want to go into space with.
00:14:38Dad went up with my granddad when he was 12 years old, and they flew in a T-6 airplane,
00:14:45and my granddad let him take the controls, and he felt like it was a natural thing that he did.
00:14:53That was when his mind kind of said, I want to do this. I want to be a pilot someday.
00:15:04He went on to West Point where his father had gone before him, and he was a world-class
00:15:13runner and hurdler. And so he almost made the Olympic team.
00:15:23He was on the track team, and he went to the Olympic trials and came in third place.
00:15:30He was only two ago at that point, but he said it might have changed his career,
00:15:35and maybe it would have been different and wouldn't have been an astronaut. You never know, you know?
00:15:52Well, they met on a date, and my mom was on a date with someone else, and my dad was
00:15:58over there,
00:15:59and apparently she was batting her eyelashes or whatever. And then one thing I think led to the other.
00:16:09They married about six months later. I came along about nine months later.
00:16:27And then Bonnie was then about two and a half years later.
00:16:45New F-100 jets go into operational service with Air Force squadrons in Germany,
00:16:49bringing the supersonic age from the experimental stage to the first line of Western air defense.
00:17:06They were flying F-100s and basically looking for any trouble
00:17:12on the border of Germany and Russia.
00:17:28Ed White was more cerebral. He thought things through in a way that others may not have.
00:17:37And he didn't try to exude that my ego is bigger than yours, you know? Some of those first seven
00:17:44did.
00:17:45But Ed, you know, was an extremely capable guy, and he was always so friendly. He was just a friendly,
00:17:52friendly person.
00:17:53He was so friendly. He was so friendly. He was so friendly. He was so friendly.
00:18:00Project Gemini is a two-man Earth orbital mission. It is an intermediate step between projects Mercury and Apollo.
00:18:07Gemini will reveal man's capabilities during extended periods of time in space.
00:18:21GUS spent the summer of 1964 at the McDonnell plant.
00:18:28He was very instrumental in the design of Gemini to the point where the other astronauts got to call it
00:18:36the GUS-mobile.
00:18:39He worked closely with the engineers, and some liked him and some didn't, because he was a very tough taskmaster.
00:18:48And I guess he took the approach that if I'm going to fly this, I want it to be exactly
00:18:53like I want it to be.
00:18:57GUS came across sometimes to people as being kind of gruff and, you know, sharp, but I never saw that.
00:19:03He was always laughing and telling jokes and kind of the typical pilot.
00:19:25There we are, 14 of us, the third group of astronauts.
00:19:29And, you know, when I look at it now, we were all very young.
00:19:37And, of course, we were all very excited to be selected at that point in the program.
00:19:46Everyone really respected that commitment on the part of JFK.
00:19:52The third group, when they came in, Roger Chaffee was one of them.
00:19:57And, boy, if you called Central Casting and asked them to send you an astronaut,
00:20:02they would send you Roger Chaffee, because he had the looks and the bearing and all of that.
00:20:07It was a new beginning in a different way.
00:20:07And, of course, we were all very excited about it.
00:20:17Lieutenant, congratulations on your selection to the new astronaut team.
00:20:20How do you feel about it?
00:20:21Very excited, very happy, and very honored that I could be chosen for this.
00:20:26I never dreamed that he would go that far.
00:20:34It was a new beginning in a different type of life.
00:20:39Mrs. Chaffee, how do you feel about your husband's appointment?
00:20:42Oh, I'm thrilled to death.
00:20:44I think it is something that he has always wanted.
00:20:46And, of course, what he wants, I want.
00:20:48And he's dreamed about it since high school, actually.
00:20:51So I'm real thrilled about it.
00:20:53Do you feel apprehensive at all, worried at all?
00:20:56Not right now, but my view might change when he gets shot off into space.
00:21:00But right now, I'm not.
00:21:02Cheryl, do you know what your daddy is?
00:21:04A rocket man.
00:21:06A rocket man?
00:21:13I met Roger my freshman year at Purdue University.
00:21:19I liked him.
00:21:20We were like two peas in a pod.
00:21:26I remember when he took flying lessons and was so excited when he did his solo.
00:21:34It was in his blood.
00:21:37And then we got married.
00:21:40I was 20, and Roger was 22.
00:21:45We got married in 57, and Cheryl was born in 58.
00:21:49And then Steve was born in 61.
00:21:52Happy New Year.
00:21:58If you didn't get married, we got married.
00:22:05So it's a great gift in Guinness.
00:22:07And then parishioners in 1961.
00:22:09So you're still got married, and you're absolutely Schwester.
00:22:12And then it's all about a glory to the sun and a health of the sun.
00:22:12It's soнюul, and Natalie started to see the fact that he knew fromblazer to the earth.
00:22:13And the sun has stayed in peace.
00:22:13And he did���age thispopped."
00:22:17Where are you?
00:22:19And the human beings said,
00:22:19That I'm sorry,
00:22:21that beautiful thing comes with you.
00:22:23I never knew he was flying reconnaissance over Cuba he never talked about it and I
00:22:30think a lot of the pilots were like that he never told me anything he went to work
00:22:35and that was it
00:22:46everything was brand new the place was new we were new what we were doing was
00:22:53completely new extremely exciting times
00:23:10we worked eight or ten twelve fourteen hours a day is seven days a week I mean
00:23:14nobody nobody thought anything about it it was just you know part of what was the
00:23:20fun of being pioneers in this kind of a business
00:23:29I would quiz him on the moon we had a big picture of the moon in his office
00:23:36and I would point to different craters for him to talk about he really wanted to
00:23:42go to the moon he wanted to go to Mars
00:24:05after Mercury NASA showed great confidence in Gus by selecting him as the command pilot for the first Gemini
00:24:14after Mercury NASA showed great confidence in Gus by selecting him as the command pilot for the first Gemini
00:24:18he named his spacecraft the unsinkable Molly Brown after his experience with Mercury
00:24:26NASA wasn't too happy with that but they considered it better than his first choices of the Titanic
00:24:37I think they made the perfect choice to put Gus as the first man Gemini commander
00:24:47and they also put a good guy in the right seat John Young who was extremely good
00:25:02I was assigned to be a coordinator between the first experiments that we flew in space really
00:25:11to be the liaison as it were between the crews and the scientists of various kinds but also often doctors
00:25:20as well
00:25:25and Gus was I'm not here for you I'm here as a test pilot
00:25:34and if you're from the press to heck with you you know if I have to deal with you I
00:25:39will but
00:25:40you know and if you're an experimenter and especially if you want me to wear something
00:25:45or you want to poke a hole in me forget it
00:25:52and here I am the interface between Gus the commander of the first Gemini mission and the first experimenters
00:25:59who were putting things in the spacecraft that would take some of his precious time
00:26:04and so as far as Gus was concerned I was an enemy
00:26:203, 2, 1, 0
00:26:263, 2, 0
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00:26:42As I recall the launch was normal but every flight that I was ever a part of always had problems
00:27:00One of the problems I remember encountered and it was in a system I was responsible for were the thrusters
00:27:07the little attitude control thrusters sticking and they would clog up
00:27:13Canary Capcom
00:27:14Go ahead Canary Capcom
00:27:15He might also try the attitude driver switch to secondary
00:27:22Roger
00:27:23Gus was smart and he was analytical
00:27:28All the Brown Cape Capcom
00:27:30How's your status on thruster?
00:27:33I have to go but still dripping a little bit cold if not dead I can hold it
00:27:38It falls no problem
00:27:39We're moving on through your dreams
00:27:41Roger
00:27:43Texas Captain
00:27:50I watched flight on television
00:27:54It was quite pleasing to see it land and know that the recovery was going very well
00:28:29Three hundred miles above the earth
00:28:31Colonel Alexei Leonov makes history
00:28:33The Russian cosmonaut is the first man to brave the vacuum of space
00:28:36Twisting turning and somersaulting as he hurtles around the world at over 17,000 miles an hour
00:28:54Jiminy 4
00:28:54Jiminy 4, they put a great crew together
00:28:56Ed, of course, was the first guy to fly out of the second group
00:29:02And McDivitt was the commander of that flight
00:29:05He was a seasoned guy that knew what he was doing
00:29:12The flight was originally set up to be pretty much of a medical experiment
00:29:17There was a big medical uproar about whether we were going to die or not when we landed
00:29:25It was the first mission to have four days in space so we didn't know how they were going to
00:29:30be affected
00:29:32This was a special mission to maybe pass the Russians for the first time from the beginning
00:29:38We were behind trying to catch up
00:29:4210, 9, ignition sequence start
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00:31:53And everything's going fine.
00:31:57Ed, come on in here.
00:32:00He was having a great time out there.
00:32:02And, of course, time flies when you're in a situation like that.
00:32:06And so what the whole world remembered was McDivitt, you know,
00:32:10looking at the watch and the checklist and saying,
00:32:12hey, it's time to get in here, Ed, and saying, yeah, yeah.
00:32:15You know, basically, yeah, yeah, I'll be with you in a minute, right?
00:32:19Trying to stay out as long as he could.
00:32:35But then when he started to get back in, McDivitt had to help him.
00:32:40The suit was puffed up, of course, and the hatch wasn't that big.
00:32:44And it really struggled to get back in.
00:32:49By the time he got back in, it was dark.
00:32:54So when we went to close the hatch, it wouldn't close, it wouldn't lock.
00:32:57And so in the dark, I was trying to fiddle around over on the side
00:33:01where I couldn't see anything,
00:33:03trying to get my club down in this little slot to push the gears together.
00:33:07And finally, we got that done and got it latched.
00:33:14When they closed that hatch, everybody said,
00:33:17God, Lord, man, I'm glad that's over.
00:33:30When we hit the water, we checked around for leaks.
00:33:34I said to Ed, how are you feeling?
00:33:37He said, I'm feeling great.
00:33:38How are you feeling?
00:33:38I said, I'm feeling great, too.
00:33:41Guess we aren't going to die.
00:33:59Ed was really the pioneer for American extravehicular activities.
00:34:05It captured the imagination of, I think, the entire public.
00:34:12To go on a parade like that in a city where Dad was born,
00:34:16and, of course, he was very proud of being a Texan.
00:34:22The whole city turned out,
00:34:23and that was the best of those kind of parades I've ever been in in my life,
00:34:28and I'll never forget that.
00:34:33It was really kind of overwhelming.
00:34:36It was like being a movie star, or even more than that.
00:34:43It's indeed a pleasure to be back here
00:34:46and stand on the steps here
00:34:48and share a little bit of the experiences I've had with you.
00:34:51It's wonderful to be back in the state of Texas.
00:34:57We were mobbed wherever we went,
00:34:59and Dad was, you know, besieged by press,
00:35:02and wherever we went, they rolled out the red carpet.
00:35:07It was just kind of crazy.
00:35:19Five, four, three, two, one.
00:35:44The journey was a two-year crash course
00:35:47in how you go to the moon and get ready for it.
00:35:51It's where we learned how to rendezvous,
00:35:53how to dock,
00:35:55how to do a spacewalk,
00:35:56an extravehicular activity, EVA.
00:35:59Not that we knew all the answers yet,
00:36:01but that we were on the right track.
00:36:08The moon is a necessary first step
00:36:10for exploration of the planets.
00:36:12To fly men there and return them safely in this decade
00:36:15is the goal of NASA's Project Apollo.
00:36:18The early missions of Mercury
00:36:20and the experience from Gemini
00:36:22have brought this country
00:36:23to the next major milestone,
00:36:25the first Apollo three-man space flight.
00:36:28These are the men to fly that mission.
00:36:31Astronaut Roger Chaffee.
00:36:33Needless to say,
00:36:34I'm extremely excited about being named
00:36:37to this flight crew,
00:36:38and I think I've got a couple of the greatest men
00:36:40in the world to work with.
00:36:41It's going to be a lot of fun.
00:36:43The senior pilot, Edward White.
00:36:45He will be remembered for his spacewalk.
00:36:48I'm working in the systems right now,
00:36:50getting up to speed,
00:36:52and I think we'll all be looking forward to the flight.
00:36:55And command pilot, Virgil Grissom,
00:36:58one of the original seven astronauts,
00:37:00his third time into space.
00:37:02I realize that this isn't a flight to the moon,
00:37:04but if it were,
00:37:05which two men would go down
00:37:07to the surface of the moon?
00:37:08If it was this crew,
00:37:11I would be me and somebody else.
00:37:23When we heard, you know,
00:37:24that it was Grissom and White and Chaffee,
00:37:27perfect, let's go.
00:37:32That was a wonderful crew.
00:37:34They had three different representatives
00:37:37from three of the different groups.
00:37:40They all clicked together very well.
00:37:50I think our crew and backup crew
00:37:53really worked very, very well together.
00:37:55I mean, we did not have any problems
00:37:59in terms of, you know,
00:38:01compatibility or dealing with things
00:38:04in spite of the difficult initial relationship with Gus.
00:38:10And we became the best of friends
00:38:12after we were on the crew together
00:38:14for no more than a week or two.
00:38:17It was a very interesting transition.
00:38:55It was a whole new vehicle
00:38:57the first time we'd built a three-person vehicle.
00:39:00North American Aviation was the contractor,
00:39:02and even though they'd had a lot of experience,
00:39:04they were struggling with the command module.
00:39:07Plus, as we learned things,
00:39:09it was continually modifying the vehicle.
00:39:13So as fast as we were building it,
00:39:15we were changing it.
00:39:17The modifications never stopped,
00:39:20which require you to go back in
00:39:21and undo work you've already done
00:39:23and checked out,
00:39:24and you pull wiring out,
00:39:25and you put new wiring in.
00:39:26It was pressure, pressure, pressure.
00:39:33When I came to work for NASA,
00:39:36the covers they had on the floor of the command module
00:39:39and over that wiring
00:39:40were just the standard phone-type protective covers.
00:39:44I don't know how in the world
00:39:45anybody would think that was acceptable
00:39:48in an oxygen environment.
00:39:54The crew was not shy about speaking up.
00:39:58They did not like some things about the spacecraft.
00:40:03They would look at something and say,
00:40:05you know,
00:40:06that switch there,
00:40:07not very handy.
00:40:09It ought to be moved over to this side.
00:40:12Well, the contractor would do it,
00:40:14you know,
00:40:15just at the whim and fancy of an astronaut.
00:40:19It drove the contractors nuts,
00:40:21and it drove the program managers even more crazy.
00:40:28Gus was very involved in the hatch design,
00:40:30and he insisted that the hatch seal from the inside out
00:40:34so that, you know,
00:40:35in the event of a leak in orbit,
00:40:37you've always got pressure in the cockpit
00:40:39holding that hatch closed,
00:40:40which was, you know,
00:40:41a sound reason.
00:40:45We all bitched about the hatch,
00:40:47no question.
00:40:48But it wasn't because of safety.
00:40:50It was because of the difficulty
00:40:51of using the damn thing.
00:40:54Time was passing,
00:40:56and we had to meet these goals,
00:40:58and Apollo was running late
00:41:00and running slow.
00:41:04They knew they had a problem.
00:41:08Everybody was trying to
00:41:09get to the moon
00:41:11in the decade of the 60s
00:41:12like President Kennedy had promised.
00:41:17And so they were cutting corners
00:41:20and doing things probably
00:41:21to get there faster.
00:41:24All of us down there
00:41:25are struggling to meet the schedule,
00:41:28and we're trying to go faster
00:41:30than we can handle.
00:41:57I was annoyed at the way
00:41:59what became Apollo 1
00:42:01came out of the plant at Downing.
00:42:04It was not finished.
00:42:07So it was shipped to the Cape
00:42:08with a bunch of spare parts
00:42:09and things to finish it out.
00:42:11And that, of course,
00:42:12caused this whole atmosphere
00:42:14of developing where
00:42:16I would almost call it
00:42:17a first case of bad gold fever.
00:42:19Gold fever meaning
00:42:20we've got to keep going,
00:42:21got to keep going,
00:42:21got to keep going.
00:42:24That evening,
00:42:25I debriefed with Gus.
00:42:27I said,
00:42:28if there are any things
00:42:29that go wrong,
00:42:30like a glitch
00:42:31in the electronic circuit,
00:42:32some bad sounds,
00:42:33scrub.
00:42:39They were frustrated,
00:42:42frustrated over the things
00:42:44that were happening
00:42:45to the spacecraft.
00:42:47I mean,
00:42:48I've got a picture
00:42:48of them praying.
00:42:54I look forward
00:42:54a great deal
00:42:55to the first flight.
00:42:57There's a great deal
00:42:57of pride involved
00:42:59in making a first flight.
00:43:01So I think I'm looking forward
00:43:03to the flight
00:43:05with a great deal
00:43:05of anticipation.
00:43:10There's a lot of unknowns,
00:43:11of course,
00:43:12and a lot of problems
00:43:13that could develop
00:43:13or might develop,
00:43:14and they'll have to be solved.
00:43:15And that's what
00:43:16we're there for.
00:43:17This is our business
00:43:18to find out
00:43:19if this thing
00:43:19will work for us.
00:43:23You flew on Mercury
00:43:24and you flew on Gemini.
00:43:25Now you're flying on Apollo.
00:43:28Does the law of averages
00:43:29so far as the possibility
00:43:31of a catastrophic failure
00:43:32bother you at all, sir?
00:43:34No, you sort of have
00:43:35to put that out of your mind.
00:43:37There's always a possibility
00:43:39that you can have
00:43:41a catastrophic failure.
00:43:43Of course,
00:43:44it's going to happen
00:43:44on any fight.
00:43:45It can happen on the...
00:43:45on the last one
00:43:46as well as the first one.
00:43:47So you just plan
00:43:51as best you can
00:43:52to take care
00:43:52of all of these eventualities.
00:43:55And you get a well-trained crew
00:43:57and they go fly.
00:44:11The Apollo 1 test,
00:44:14which we consider
00:44:14to be non-hazardous,
00:44:16ran long
00:44:17because of various problems
00:44:19during the afternoon
00:44:19and then the comm system
00:44:22was really acting up.
00:44:41I was in mission control.
00:44:42I was a flight controller.
00:44:43before we had gone round
00:44:45and round and round
00:44:46and round on the communication issues.
00:44:49We could not get a clear voice.
00:44:51We couldn't talk to each other.
00:45:05Gus was forever complaining
00:45:08about the countdown
00:45:10and the communications.
00:45:21We knew that there was bad workmanship.
00:45:24We knew that the wires were exposed.
00:45:27We knew that there was a lot of stuff going on
00:45:32in that spacecraft
00:45:33that we didn't like.
00:45:39I don't think any of us
00:45:40recognized the seriousness
00:45:42of the danger
00:45:44we had put the crew in.
00:45:55Hey!
00:45:59I don't know if there was fire
00:46:00on the coast trip.
00:46:02What?
00:46:05I don't know if there was a bad fire.
00:46:08I don't know if there was a bad fire.
00:46:20That whole ball of fire
00:46:22that was inside that vessel
00:46:23came out like sheets of flame.
00:46:28Technicians were burned.
00:46:29Pipes were set on fire.
00:46:32People were rushing
00:46:33in all directions of trying to get fire extinguishers six guys took it in turn two at a
00:46:48time to try and get the hatches off in the process they were burning their hands on the hatches
00:46:56then the fire came up the side and filled the whole room with black smoke
00:47:14and then from then on it was impossible to do anything about it
00:47:25i've seen death happen various ways but not like that
00:47:34top space agency officials are flying to cape kennedy tonight to begin the official investigation
00:47:39into what caused a flash fire that killed the nation's first three apollo astronauts earlier
00:47:44tonight lieutenant colonel gus chrissom 42 lieutenant colonel ed white 36 and lieutenant commander roger
00:47:51chaffee 31 all died in moments helplessly trapped inside their spacecraft
00:48:05it was just a news flash on the radio on the car and i i slammed on the brakes and
00:48:11pull off to the
00:48:12side just before going under the runway and i just i had to just sit there i i think for
00:48:2115 or 20 minutes before i felt i could i could drive again i mean it was such a shock
00:48:37all at once it was shock disbelief confusion
00:48:44i was more concerned with mom and dad and how they were going to react to this
00:48:53surprisingly i think mom handled it very well dad took it very very hard
00:49:01i don't think he ever quite got over it
00:49:04i don't think he was going to react to this
00:49:10jan armstrong was in our driveway when we came pulling up
00:49:13and she got mom and then they just sent me and ed to our room and we were back there
00:49:19sitting in our rooms we didn't know what was going on and then i think at some point mom ended
00:49:26up
00:49:26coming in and i just yeah it's the worst thing you could ever possibly hear
00:49:40that was probably the worst night of my life without a doubt for sure
00:49:53i remember every single second of that day
00:50:01and i had to tell my kids
00:50:20i remember the horses in the carriage bringing the coffin
00:50:29like the vampires were there and president johnson
00:51:05that was probably the worst time of my life without a little past
00:51:05and i thought to myself there were no kids but they were a little crampo
00:51:05like the entire life without a little napkins
00:51:05like the mother of a mother of a mother of the mother's kids
00:51:14long time and that was very young
00:51:17Mom did what my dad had wanted.
00:51:20He wanted to be buried at West Point.
00:51:23That was his wish.
00:51:26Mom wanted to keep Dad's wish, so we went that way.
00:51:57You had that feeling of guilt, you had that feeling of remorse, you had that feeling of
00:52:03my God, why did we ever let that happen?
00:52:07And there's those three men are gone.
00:52:10And you had to deal with that.
00:52:29I was the designated engineer to go into the spacecraft to try to identify where the
00:52:38source of the ignition was.
00:52:49It was a very traumatic situation.
00:52:52But at the same time, my focus and concentration was on my job.
00:53:20All the leaders in both NASA and North American lost their jobs.
00:53:27And they brought in new people.
00:53:29They were all tough guys.
00:53:31They took no rubbish from anybody.
00:53:33They ran a hard shop.
00:53:35They had very little patience with people that screwed up or didn't do the job.
00:53:38And they really took over the program.
00:53:42I thought it was unnecessary to move as many people as we did.
00:53:46That's just the way it was.
00:53:47Politics is tough in a situation like that.
00:54:00In retrospect, we put the story together is that the single spark ignited either Velcro or
00:54:07the T-Zero netting, or the T-Zero netting, and in a 100% oxygen environment, instantly
00:54:12it was like a fireball just going across that spacecraft all the way to the other side.
00:54:17And it was instantaneous.
00:54:25In Washington, astronauts, Bormen, McDivitt, Slayton, Shira, and Shepard attend a congressional
00:54:30subcommittee hearing probing the Apollo capsule disaster.
00:54:34The questions...
00:54:35We went through a lot of trauma.
00:54:38NASA, unfortunately as a bunch of civilians, didn't know how to take off the black armband.
00:54:44And military people moan inside, cry inside, bleed inside about losing a compatriot.
00:54:50But they wear the black armband to the funeral, and that's it.
00:54:53It's gone.
00:54:54NASA wore the black armband for a year.
00:54:56And we kept saying, look, take the band off, we've got to get back to work.
00:55:00Gus would be the first person to say, let's get on with it.
00:55:12We were right up against it.
00:55:15I mean, the idea that we could recover from that kind of accident and all of the work that
00:55:21had to be done, rebuilding things, and still make the end of the decade, man, that was, it
00:55:29was really tight.
00:55:40In a year that was really bad in the United States, in 1968, the riots, Vietnam was going
00:55:47downhill.
00:55:47There was so much negativity in the world.
00:55:50That was really nice.
00:55:52That was really nice to actually do.
00:55:58E symbolic of theatиля, and the way that this mass would are really fine, for what
00:56:05are people I think lived here, and was to get out with the trees outside of the roof on the
00:56:05But now, of course, tomorrow, it's the last day had a change.
00:56:12Then, of course, it was brought to Mexico State on the island, and ответ on the ocean that
00:56:14It was here on the island eaters and it didn't have been in the atmosphere, but it was not
00:56:27Everything had to work right, and miraculously, it did.
00:56:39And then in December of 68,
00:56:42Borman, Lovell, and Anders took off to the moon.
00:56:48To go from Earth orbit to the moon, it was a big jump.
00:56:55That was just amazing.
00:57:09And then 11 came along.
00:57:22And one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
00:57:35How exciting.
00:57:38I can remember that like it was yesterday.
00:57:55I took great pride in the fact that we did land on the moon.
00:57:59I think that's what Gus would have wanted.
00:58:03To do it in the time frame that Kennedy asked.
00:58:08I think that probably without the sacrifice of Apollo 1, we would have never made it to the moon in
00:58:15a decade.
00:58:19It was an incredible time.
00:58:24We were doing it for ourselves.
00:58:29We were doing it for our fellow crewmen who weren't around anymore to do it.
00:58:34We were doing it for humanity.
00:58:37We were doing it for humanity.
00:59:04We were doing it for us.
00:59:05We were doing it for us.
00:59:19As the missions went on, after Apollo 11, we became more focused on real exploration.
00:59:26and Dave Scott
00:59:28was a very thoughtful guy
00:59:30he left a tribute
00:59:32on the surface
00:59:33to the fallen astronauts
00:59:36which included the Apollo 1 crew
00:59:495
00:59:504
00:59:513
00:59:522
00:59:531
01:00:05the shuttle program
01:00:07that was the most fantastic flying machine
01:00:09you've ever seen
01:00:27we have main engine starting
01:00:294
01:00:303
01:00:312
01:00:311
01:00:32and liftoff
01:00:34and liftoff
01:00:36from the 25th space shuttle mission
01:00:38and it has cleared the tower
01:00:43but NASA
01:00:44they made some really bad efforts
01:00:54Challenger was one
01:00:56Columbia was another one
01:01:08you are putting your life on the line
01:01:11because you believe in what it is you're doing
01:01:13I mean being at the forefront of exploration
01:01:17is something that you're willing to pay a price for
01:01:28here we have all 25 astronauts recognized on our wall
01:01:40NASA in a very difficult way
01:01:43has had to learn some very tough lessons
01:01:46in how you deal with disasters
01:01:48and they're doing it quite well now
01:01:49hopefully they'll never have to do it again
01:01:51but they have a strong commitment to supporting the families
01:02:12we feel like we're part of the NASA family
01:02:14and ultimately
01:02:15we see our mission as helping them fulfill their mission
01:02:19which is human exploration
01:02:21which was the dream of those astronauts who perished
01:02:29I'm glad that they got the memorial
01:02:32it's just something to look at and say
01:02:35hey he's remembered
01:02:38and that's important
01:02:56people want to remember him
01:03:01he was the first American to walk in space
01:03:07getting over it has been something we've been able to do together
01:03:12Bonnie has helped me and I've helped her
01:03:14all that time you know
01:03:26sometimes I see my dad in my dreams
01:03:30and they're always positive and urging me forward in my life
01:03:35which I appreciate that he does that every so often
01:03:46I remember having dreams that he would walk through the front door
01:03:51and you know say hey I'm home
01:03:54and he'd just have maybe a bandage on his face
01:03:57or on his hand or something
01:03:58and yeah I had those dreams quite frequently
01:04:03you know they're around watching you
01:04:06and guarding
01:04:07they're angels
01:04:36it's the light of life
01:04:38they light one for Gus
01:04:40one for Ed and one for my dad
01:04:42and I think that's just shining their light
01:04:45when they um
01:04:47when those candles are lit
01:04:58the last time I was there
01:05:00I looked up at the sky and there were three stars
01:05:06lined up
01:05:08and it was really really special
01:05:22Apollo fire is still a very significant event in people's minds
01:05:28when you look at the history of the space program
01:05:31the loss of those three guys will always be significant
01:05:43I don't think the three of them died in vain
01:05:47I think they were the stepping stones
01:05:50for the rest of the people to go to the moon
01:06:06and now we have Artemis going back to the moon
01:06:09and this is all a great continuation
01:06:13ladies and gentlemen
01:06:14your Artemis 2 crew
01:06:21we're all family
01:06:23and it's a family of astronauts
01:06:25now a family not just of white Christian men
01:06:29but a lot of diversity
01:06:31men, women, people from all over the world
01:06:37earth life is moving out
01:06:40into the universe
01:06:41and Artemis is that next big step
01:06:47this next step will be better than what we did
01:06:50better tools, better technology
01:06:54the lessons we learn on Apollo 1
01:06:57have been with us ever since
01:07:00and I think every time that spacecraft launches
01:07:05we'll know it's got a little bit of Apollo 1 in it
01:07:44though the days are long
01:07:47twilight sings a song
01:07:51of the happiness that used to be
01:07:59I'll see you in my dreams
01:08:07hold you in my dream
01:08:12somebody
01:08:16you
01:08:16you
01:08:16you
01:08:16you
01:08:17you
01:08:17you
01:08:17you
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