FAILURE OF IMAGINATION

As soon as the world learned of Sputnik’s launch, it was clear that the United States lagged behind the Soviet Union in the lifting capacity of their launch vehicles. But this was no failing of their designers. Rather, most rocket research to this point had been in support of both nations’ nuclear weapons programmes and because US designers were better at building smaller, lighter weapons their rockets were smaller. The Atlas missile used for the Mercury orbital flights and the Titan for the Gemini programme were really delivery systems for nuclear weapons, and struggled to lift their manned payloads. It became habitual for designers to minimise payload weight as they strove to maximise the capability of their spacecraft within the constraints of the available rockets. One decision to save weight would have tragic consequences for what was to have been the first manned Apollo mission.

On Earth, the atmosphere consists of four-fifths nitrogen and one fifth oxygen, the latter being the gas that sustains life. To save the substantial mass of the
equipment required to supply two gases in a manned spacecraft, NASA decided that the cabins of its space­craft would be filled with 100 per cent oxygen, but at a low pressure to ensure that the crew received only the concentration of oxygen mole­cules to which their lungs were accustomed. This single-gas arrange­ment worked well throughout the Mercury and Gemini programmes, and was a sound engineering deci­sion, but as the first Apollo crew were preparing their spacecraft for flight, this nearly ended the pro­gramme.

On 27 January 1967, the AS-204 mission was three weeks away from its planned launch. It was so desig­nated because it was to use the fourth vehicle in the Saturn IB series.

Informally, it was dubbed Apollo 1.

The Apollo spacecraft, CSM number 012, was a Block I type and was sitting on top of an unfuelled launch vehicle. Its crew of three were strapped in for a ‘plugs out’ countdown simulation in which the ability of the entire space vehicle to function on its own power would be tested. The cabin had been deliberately overpressurised with pure oxygen in order to test for leaks, as had been done in ground tests for the Mercury and Gemini programmes. Five and a half hours into a simulated countdown that had made only halting progress, a fire began near the commander’s feet. In the super-oxygenated environment, this quickly grew into an intense conflagration that ruptured the hull of the spacecraft and asphyxiated the three crewmen – Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee.

NASA sustained heavy criticism from the press and the political classes for this tragedy. Some was directed at the manufacturer, North American Aviation, with accusations of sloppy workmanship. North American rebutted, pointing out that as it tried to build the spacecraft, NASA had insisted on interfering with the process by ordering a multitude of changes. In congressional hearings on the fire, astronaut Frank Borman appealed for support from the lawmakers. “We are confident in our management, our engineering and ourselves. I think the question is: are you confident in us?”

NASA learned many lessons from this accident and applied them to the rest of the Apollo programme. Some commentators have argued, convincingly, that there was a very real possibility that, had the fire not occurred, NASA would never have realised

its lunar dream. They point out that the shock of the deaths spurred all those involved in the programme, especially at NASA and North American, to make the Block II spacecraft into the great spacefaring ship it became. Without the changes imposed by the tragedy, casualties may have occurred later in the programme, possibly in space. At the very least, the development problems of the Block I Apollo spacecraft would probably have crippled the programme at a later stage had they not been brought into sharp focus so early on.

Although NASA wanted to keep this unflown mission’s name as AS-204, it acceded to the widows’ requests that the name Apollo 1 be reserved for their dead husbands’ flight. Crews had been in training for Apollos 2 and 3, scheduled for later in 1967, but they were cancelled.

Meanwhile, a few months after the Apollo fire the Soviet Union grieved at its first loss of a cosmonaut during a test of the new Soyuz spacecraft. Both nations therefore had to cope with setbacks in their race to the Moon.