Posted on 01/26/2023 9:33:36 AM PST by Ezekiel
– NASA Day of Remembrance –
Each January NASA pauses to honor members of the NASA family who lost their lives while furthering the cause of exploration and discovery, including the crews of Apollo 1 and space shuttles Challenger and Columbia. In 2023, the Day of Remembrance will be observed on Jan. 26, and will also mark the upcoming 20th anniversary of the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003.
– Day of Remembrance Video –
– Remembering Columbia –
The seven-member crew of the STS-107 mission was just 16 minutes from landing on the morning of Feb. 1, 2003, when Mission Control lost contact with the shuttle Columbia. A piece of foam, falling from the external tank during launch, had opened a hole in one of the shuttle's wings, leading to the breakup of the orbiter upon re-entry.
Addressing the nation, President Bush said, "mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on."
– Remembering Challenger –
Just 73 seconds after launch on the morning of Jan. 28, 1986, a booster engine failed and caused the shuttle Challenger to break apart, taking the lives of all seven crewmembers.
President Ronald Reagan eulogized the crew, quoting from John Gillespie Magee’s poem High Flight: "We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.' "
– Remembering Apollo 1 –
On Jan. 27, 1967, veteran astronaut Gus Grissom, first American spacewalker Ed White, and rookie Roger Chaffee were sitting atop the launch pad for a pre-launch test when a fire broke out in their Apollo capsule.
The investigation into the fatal accident led to major design and engineering changes, making the Apollo spacecraft safer for the coming journeys to the Moon.
Jan 20, 2023
RELEASE 23-010
NASA Observes Day of Remembrance Ahead of Columbia 20th Anniversary
We watched Columbia go up in a night time launch from Patrick AFB.
It was amazing seeing the night sky light up.
Couldn't believe it when somebody listening to the launch, turned up the volume on their radio. Without hearing any details, we knew what must have happened.
Same as the RFK assassination, Dad had the morning TV news on, which was unusual, and so I knew as I came upstairs what must have happened.
Grissom put a lemon on the capsule—that tells you what he thought of the Apollo program.
He was still making sarcastic comments moments before the Apollo 1 fire—complaining about communications failure between the capsule on the ground and mission control.
NASA thought he needed an “attitude adjustment” and the rest of the astronauts needed to learn what happened to folks who were not “team players”.
Then NASA got to investigate themselves and declared themselves innocent of all wrongdoing.
If you dig a little bit you can learn that Grissom’s wife believed he was murdered.
It [apparently] had launched just fine, so what was my problem.
Then like a lot of people, I was watching the coverage of landing on TV (while also on FR), and it was pretty obvious that something had gone horribly wrong all over the place, even as the news people were "still waiting" for Columbia to land.
There were several excellent editorial cartoons. Hard to find images to post of any of the ones I remember.
I recently read “Apollo 8” which goes into a lot of the background of the Apollo program, including the story about lemon (but not what the wife thought). Massive dysfunction in the production, the communications problems as you mentioned, on and on.
I was watching the launch because there was a TV in the room I worked in. As soon as Challenger exploded I alerted the people in the next office and they thought I was joking.
Well whatever, I wasn’t going to stand around trying to convince them. I went back to watching the dreadful scene, debris still falling.
They eventually realized that I wasn’t messing around.
If you dig a bit deeper you will find out that Apollo 1 was sabotage.
The “accident” required human intervention.
Remember: NASA investigated themselves. There was zero chance they would tell the public what really happened.
Not sabotage.
I think the stopped using pure oxygen environment in capsule after that fire.
There was no way to open the doors from the inside while on the ground.
Sabotage.
How many years did you spend in aerospace?
“Poor design”
OK.....
The other Apollo astronauts knew better—they weren’t buying the “cover story” even if you fell for it.
They learned on that day that there were thousands of “poor design” and “accidental” things that could go wrong if they did not follow orders and keep their mouths shut.
Source?
Sure—here is one:
https://www.seeker.com/the-apollo-1-conspiracy-theory-1766444880.html
But—there is a larger context as well which is “heresy” to many Freepers:
https://www.aulis.com/investigation.htm
Neither are worthy of response. Believe what you will.
“Neither are worthy of response. Believe what you will.”
Tell that to Grissom’s family.
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