Click Here for Apollo 1 55th Anniversary Information
Apollo 1
On January 27, 1967, a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 killed all three crew members of the planned first Apollo mission—Command Pilot Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, Senior Pilot Edward H. White II, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee. The ground crew tried futilely to rescue the crew while risking their own lives. Five men of the ground crew who received the NASA Medal for Exceptional Bravery on Oct 23, 1967 are shown in the photo.
A Florida Today article is shown below with the photo. Not shown is Henry H. Rogers Jr. of NASA, a sixth team member who also received the award.
Click on the photo icons to open and enlarge.
From left, James D. Gleaves, L. D. Reece, Jerry W. Hawkins, Stephen B. Clemmons, and Donald O. Babbit, all of North American Aviation Space Division.
Apollo 1 crew entering the CM prior to an altitude test in a vacuum chamber in the O&C building at KSC
(Photo in work)
The photo above is of a CM 012 altitude run in the fall of 1966. If you can provide names or comments, please do. The names we have are;
1 Gus Grisssom, CDR
2 Roger Chaffee, LMP
3 Ed White, CMP
4, 5, 6, are JSC suit Technicians, one assigned to each astronaut.
14 Lou Curatola, Pad Leader
Second from left is my uncle LD.
We talked many times about that
Day.
Dear Mr Reece,
I am doing research for a British TV company about Apollo 1 and am keen to have a chat about your uncle – would that be possible? My email is esther.mcwatters@tophat.tv so please contact me. All best wishes, Esther
Thank you for the names and photo of the Apollo 1 technicians. Could not find it anywhere else.
We’d like to use a photo from your website in the December issue of Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine. The photo is here:
http://nalfl.com/?page_id=3981
Could we please have your permission? Thank you.
Yes, by all means. Approval to use the photo for the Air & Space/Smithsonian Magazine is granted.