07-02-2009 Apollo Missions: Apollo 1 (Article 173)

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Simon Kenny
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07-02-2009 Apollo Missions: Apollo 1 (Article 173)

Post by Simon Kenny » Fri Feb 13, 2009 9:03 pm

Apollo Missions: Apollo 1 (Article 173)

Welcome to this, the first in a short series of articles on the Apollo space missions.
NASA celebrated its 50th Anniversary on 1st October 2008. In those 50 years, NASA has spent 700 Billion Dollars on the entire Space Programme. That is the same amount of money that the US Government has just bailed out the US financial institutions with, as of November 2008.
On 20th July this year, it will be the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landings. NASA was just 10 years into being at that time. In just 10 short years they went from humble beginnings to landing a man on the moon. In the space of one lifetime, the Wright brothers invented powered flight of a heavier than air craft (17th December 1903) and (in 1969) a man landed on the moon.

The Apollo 1 Crew consisted of Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. What became known as Apollo 1 was in fact given this designation in retrospect. It was originally titled the AS-204 (Apollo / Saturn 204). This was a combination of an Apollo spacecraft on top of a Saturn 1B rocket.

The “we choose to go to the moon…” speech given by President John F. Kennedy at Rice University on September 12th 1962 gave NASA both a destination and a timeframe. The Apollo programme was to deliver on that challenge. Of course, at that time, the Americans were playing catch-up to the Russians, who had already beaten them by being first to get a man into space and back again.
Like every mission then and now, extensive testing and dry runs with the crew were routinely carried out. Nowadays, many of the technological challenges faced back in the 1960’s have been resolved to extinction. The crucial test that failed Apollo 1 was on Pad 34 at what was then known as Cape Kennedy (now known as Cape Canaveral). Communications tests were being run between the control centre and the Apollo spacecraft. It was what is called a “plugs-out” test, carried out in the Space capsule with the crew fully suited up, including their helmets. Frequent radio communications failures were frustrating the crew and ground staff alike. At 6:30pm, patchy communications delivered chilling static-laced words over the airwaves from the crew. There was a fire in the capsule. Unsuccessful efforts to get them released identified problems with the design of the capsule as well as other contributory factors and resulted in modifications for later missions. Apollo 1 never got off the ground but nonetheless contributed to the overall success of the later missions. All three of the astronauts died. Despite the tragedy, the other astronauts, often dubbed as being made of the “right stuff”, grieved but stayed with the programme. They were brave men, always aware of the dangerous pursuit. Despite this, the space programme was never short of people who wanted to be astronauts. Back then, almost all of them came from the military (air force and navy) or test pilot stables. The astronauts’ wives asked that the spacecraft be called Apollo 1.
The Apollo 1 Saturn 1B rocket was later used to successfully launch the Apollo 5 mission.

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