![]() ![]() Kennedy's goal, set in 1961, of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth" by the end of the decade. The ambitious human spaceflight program had been launched in response to President John F. The mission was to carry Grissom, White, and Chaffee into Earth's orbit, allowing them to test out the Apollo launch and flight systems-in particular the Command Service Module-making sure the technology used on the eventual moon landing would be up to the task.Īt this point, the Apollo program was in its sixth year. January 27, 1967, was a Friday, the end of another grueling week ramping up to the Apollo I launch date, mere weeks away: February 21, 1967. He was a husband, and father to three boys. He was a proud member of the team that put the first human on the moon. Rogers was a veteran who served in WWII and the Korean War. He marched forward stoically, the way so many from that generation seemed to do, and continued to work on the Apollo program until its conclusion, in 1975. Rogers's actions that night earned him, and the other men who attempted the rescue, the NASA Medal for Exceptional Bravery, a rare honor given "for exemplary and courageous handling of an emergency by an individual who, independent of personal danger, has acted to prevent the loss of human life." But he never spoke about the fire at home with his family. The severity of that moment has become a footnote in the public consciousness, faded by the decades that have passed and overshadowed by the incredible achievements of the Apollo program that followed.īut for those like Henry Rogers who experienced the tragedy firsthand, the trauma of Januleft scars, and a deep sense of regret that's difficult to capture all these years later. But the sheer horror and emotional intensity of having three colleagues-for many in the program, three close friends-suffocate in a burning capsule while scrambling to save them, hasn't been as well preserved. The legacy of the Apollo fire of 1967 is preserved in history books and lengthy documentaries. Years later, many at NASA believed their deaths were the one thing that saved the program, but in the wake of tragedy, the future of the fledgling Apollo program became uncertain. Though they eventually pried the hatches off, it was too late. Rogers and five other men including Clemmons, put their lives at risk to try to rescue Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, the three astronauts trapped inside the burning spacecraft. He had not been trained on how to get the hatches off, but he tried." "Instead he made his way through the smoke and fire and began to help any way he could. ![]() "He could have gotten back on the elevator and escaped to safety, knowing the dangers involved, but he didn't hesitate," the late Stephen Clemmons, a spacecraft mechanical technician who was also there that night, wrote in a 2004 essay. ![]()
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