On this day in history...I've always wondered about the real story behind this incident.
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sadly... the truth will never be told by our government...
And that's the truth.
When I saw it way back when it didn’t make sense why the movie The Right Stuff made Grissom look bad. Didn’t have any idea back then how much the entertainment industry was used to manipulate public awareness and opinion.
Yeah, I remember seeing The Right Stuff when I was a teenager. They spent a big chunk of the movie on making Grissom look like a humiliated failure, and I couldn't figure out why he was to blame for anything. I imagine his family was not happy about his portrayal in that film.
No doubt NASA was pleased with it.
Grissom was a better pilot, commander, and all around a better astronaut than Aldrin, Armstrong, and the other guy on Apollo 11. And he was pissed he'd been continually passed up for the more historic flights. He was also way more outspoken about things than most of the other astronauts, too. Not as bad as Yeager, which is why I think [they] allowed Grissom to participate, but not enough to be "historic" like Aldrin and Armstrong.
However, with all the data and research for the Apollo program now destroyed down to the last nut & bolt, we'll probably never know what exactly happened. It was a sad day, indeed, for our movement when NASA finally admitted they destroyed all the research, documents, schematics, and mishap investigation data from the prior programs. Gemini, Mercury, Saturn, Apollo, and Shuttle Programs...all gone. Not one thing is left, except for what's in the "public" record in the form of books, t.v. reports, eye witness accounts, etc.
Grissom really got screwed throughout his career with NASA. He was the guy who allegedly "blew the hatch" on his Mercury mission, and then he died during his Apollo training. His reputation to most people will always be that he was cursed or a failure when, as you say, he was actually a highly skilled, intelligent, and competent man. He was also a complainer and a shit-stirrer, and I liked that about him. You can hear him complaining in the audio recordings from the morning he died.
It's criminal that we'll never know what he knew about NASA or what they did to him and countless others.
ETA that the actual anniversary was yesterday, January 27. Yeah, it's been one of those weeks. I don't even know what day it is anymore.
I posted about this because, when I was a kid, I was a huge NASA geek and read everything I could get my hands on about the original Mercury/Apollo astronauts. That was back when I believed NASA was legit. I remember watching a documentary about the Apollo program, and I cried watching the segment about the Apollo 1 tragedy. As I got older, I could never believe that there weren't better safety measures in place to save the crew in the event of an accident like this. They just let those guys cook in that capsule.
I've heard people say that they were killed on purpose to keep them from talking, but it's hard to find information about it now. Grissom, especially, had no problem complaining about problems he saw at NASA. I still think of him and his crew every year on January 27.
I find this picture a little odd. I don't recall ever seeing one like this from any other crew where it showed them praying over a capsule, though maybe there are some out there. Warning: there are images of the burnt spacesuits in this picture as well. https://preview.redd.it/oil0jhkuud981.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=c744cbab4f7955e13a565357ea6f8a3b5894d7ac
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Thanks, I added a different link. Should show the picture of them pretending to pray.
I remember this. What a horrible way to die. RIP
I don't get it. At the time it was reported as an electrical fire out of control because of the capsule's oxygen-rich environment. Sounds like they are sticking to same story now.
"Sadly, Grissom had no idea that his celestial jest would turn into a memorial to himself and his crewmates." What did this have to do with it?
So, I messed up by posting this today and not yesterday when the actual Apollo 1 anniversary occurred. However, I just realized that today, January 28, IS the anniversary of the Challenger disaster. What a bad week in NASA history. The Challenger disaster is another example of good people sacrificed for the government. What a scummy story it is.