WE'VE LOST THE CREW
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January 27, 1967, was to be another routine simulation. The Apollo Command Module sat perched atop an empty Saturn booster at the Kennedy Space Center; Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Edward White were sealed inside. At 6:31 p.m. the radio crackled with Chaffee's voice. "Fire, I smell fire." Seconds later he messaged frantically: "We've got a bad fire.... We're burning up!" The crew of Apollo I was trapped inside a pure oxygen environment and within seconds the capsule temperature peaked at 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Medical examiners estimated that within 45 seconds the three men were dead of asphyxiation. It took minutes to unseal the hatch and hear from the pad leader, "I'd better not describe what I see." The details were painfully clear. Apollo I had ended in a tragic failure.
NASA
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