by Amy Cherrix
Left to right: Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.
At 5:40 p.m., a communications failure delayed the countdown. At 6:30 p.m., Grissom said, “How are we going to get to the moon if we can’t talk between three buildings?” One minute later, a power surge was recorded. Soon after, White could be heard:
“We’ve got a fire in the cockpit!”
The capsule’s oxygen had ignited. All three astronauts were trapped. Getting them out of the capsule immediately was impossible. Under normal conditions the hatch took ninety seconds to open. Due to the tremendous heat generated by the fire, technicians struggled for five minutes before finally opening it. By then, all three astronauts were dead.
It was NASA’s first catastrophic accident. The American people were shocked and saddened by the deaths of Chaffee, White, and Grissom. Each of the three astronauts was honored with a military funeral in accordance with their branches of service. While the country mourned, the incident raised troubling questions about safety, endangering the fledgling space program. If something like this could happen in a rocket that wasn’t leaving the ground, how could the safety of any astronaut ever be guaranteed? It couldn’t, and the Apollo 1 astronauts had willingly accepted that risk.
An investigation of the fire began immediately and lasted eighteen months, delaying the Apollo program while the command module was completely redesigned. The cause of the fatal blaze was a short circuit in a wire bundle near Grissom’s seat. A spark had ignited the flammable material inside the capsule’s oxygen-rich environment. New safety features were implemented to prevent future fire hazards. Among other modifications, the flammable material was replaced and a new hatch installed that opened outward and more quickly. Chaffee, White, and Grissom had made the ultimate sacrifice for their country, and their deaths served as a chilling reminder of the risks undertaken in attempting to reach the moon. Von Braun later said that America had lost “three good friends and valiant pioneers,” whose deaths reminded him of the Latin saying ad astra per aspera—a rough road leads to the stars.12
Soyuz 1: First Flight
Three months after the Apollo 1 tragedy in America, on a bright, sunlit morning, a Soviet helicopter zoomed across the Kazakhstan desert, searching for the landing site of cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov and his Soyuz 1 space capsule. Komarov, who had been a crewmember of the risky and overcrowded three-person Voskhod mission, had a new spacecraft all to himself on a solo flight.
The innovative Soyuz rocket and space capsule, under development at the time of Korolev’s death, were destined to become the future of spaceflight for the Russians. At the time of Komarov’s flight, the capsule and its launch vehicle—a rocket based on the R-7 Semyorka—remained unproven.
It had been two years since the Soviets had launched a crewed flight, with cosmonauts Leonov and Belyayev achieving the world’s first space walk. Sergei Korolev had been dead more than a year. Despite the delays caused by the Apollo 1 accident, the United States’ space program was advancing much faster than the Soviets’. The big Saturn V was almost ready, and the Soviets had yet to perfect a rocket that could compete with it. Vasily Mishin hoped that the Soyuz 1 flight would succeed and reassert his country’s position in the space race.
After a picture-perfect launch on April 24, a series of failures in the Soyuz 1 power system complicated the flight. The capsule relied on both fuel and solar energy to function. First, the left solar panel failed to deploy, robbing the spacecraft of a power source. This also created an imbalance in the capsule, which prevented the functioning solar panel from turning toward the sun. If Komarov was unable to solve these problems, the Soyuz 1 could be thrust into a higher orbit or reenter Earth’s atmosphere at the wrong angle, burning up during descent.
Engineers on the ground calculated that Soyuz 1 had enough fuel for nineteen orbits—about one day. They wanted Komarov to head home by the seventeenth orbit. That would give the cosmonaut two more orbits as a buffer. After that, it would be too late.
Due to the capsule’s loss of power, Komarov would have to manually steer the Soyuz for reentry into Earth’s atmosphere—a maneuver that he had never simulated in training. The commands were transmitted to Komarov; he executed them as instructed and began deorbiting. Communications between Komarov and ground control were sporadic, but the cosmonaut sounded composed. When ground control received the signal that the capsule had landed, a helicopter was dispatched to rendezvous with the Soyuz 1 on the ground. It was almost six thirty a.m.
Inside the chopper, officials scanned the Kazakhstan desert for a sign of Komarov and his spacecraft. Suddenly the helicopter pilot made a steep right turn and steered toward the ground. The capsule came into view. It was resting on its side, engulfed in smoke and fire. Witnesses reported seeing the capsule’s failed parachute, meant to slow its descent, flapping uselessly behind the Soyuz 1. Komarov had hit the ground traveling 115–130 feet per second and died on impact.
The Soviets did not try to hide Komarov’s death, because cosmonauts were recognizable public figures and their missions were heavily publicized propaganda events. However, the details of Komarov’s flight, in keeping with the Soviet tradition of secrecy, were classified for decades. In a show of solidarity, American astronauts sent condolences to the Soviet Union via telegram. “We are very saddened by the loss of Col. Komarov,” they wrote in part. “We particularly want to express our deep sense of sympathy to Mrs. Komarov, their children and his fellow cosmonauts.” Both space programs had suffered terrible losses on their rough road to the stars.
The following year, 1968, delivered another devastating loss to the Soviet Union and the already heartbroken Russian people: on March 27, Yuri Gagarin was killed when his MiG-15 fighter jet crashed outside Moscow. For years, rumors have persisted that Gagarin’s death was deliberate. His fellow cosmonuat, Alexei Leonov, maintained that the crash was an accident.
After launching Sputnik, the Soviets had dominated the early years of the competition. Now they were barely keeping their heads above water. But in death Korolev had one card left to play: the N-1.
Throughout the mid-1960s, CIA spy satellites regularly photographed the Soviet Union. As intelligence analysts reviewed reconnaissance images, they spotted what appeared to be new construction. The Russians appeared to be building at least two new launch towers. Judging by their size, the Soviets had engineered another huge rocket. Were they attempting a moon shot? If the first flag to be planted on the moon was going to be American, NASA needed to pick up the pace.
Chapter 38
Apollo Takes Flight
George Mueller, NASA associate administrator for manned space flight—and one of von Braun’s bosses—had a radical idea about how to accelerate the Apollo schedule. He wanted to streamline production of the Saturn V by changing the way the rocket was tested. Mueller proposed an uncrewed “all-up” test as the very first test of the giant Saturn V. The rocket, with both its command module and service modules, would be launched on a flight path that would simulate a return from the moon.
He had first suggested the idea in 1964 during a visit to Huntsville. At the time, the meticulous German rocketeers had dismissed Mueller’s idea as reckless. They had their own tried-and-true method: testing the rocket stages individually, adding each new stage after the previous one had been proven sound. By 1967, however, the all-up test strategy looked more appealing. After the deaths of Grissom, Chaffee, and White, the Apollo capsule had to be completely redesigned, delaying the Apollo program. If Mueller’s plan succeeded, it would save time by eliminating unnecssary test flights. The convincing argument, coupled with fear that the Soviets would launch their own moon rocket first, changed von Braun’s mind.
The uncrewed Apollo 4 mission would be the first-ever Saturn V to launch from Cape Kennedy, Florida.13
Apollo 4: “All Up”
On November 9, 1967, the F-1 engines screamed to life beneath Apollo 4, with a force that shook the walls of the Launch Control Center three miles away. Insid
e, plaster rained down on news reporter Walter Cronkite as he covered the televised launch for the CBS network. Cronkite and a colleague held the glass window behind them, fearing it would break. The vibrations triggered earthquake seismometers. Someone later remarked that “the question was not whether the Saturn V had risen, but whether Florida had sunk.” Veteran NASA contractor Jim Jenkins, who worked with the Apollo program, remembered fifty-two years later the deafening roar of the Saturn V engines. “When that thing fired,” he said, “it sounded like God himself was clearing his throat.” The successful launch of Apollo 4 in Mueller’s all-up test cleared the way for two more successful uncrewed test flights, Apollo 5 and Apollo 6. The next mission would be the first flight with astronauts since the deaths of astronauts Chaffee, White, and Grissom aboard Apollo 1.
Apollo 7: The First NASA Crew in Space
On October 11, 1968, Apollo 7 was on the pad. NASA was encouraged that Kennedy’s deadline could still be met. Now it was up to astronauts Walter “Wally” Schirra, Donn F. Eisele, and Walter Cunningham to prove that the redesigned command module was sound. At ignition, the Saturn I rocket lifted into the sky without incident.
As they orbited the Earth, all three astronauts came down with the world’s first space colds. Sick days weren’t an option for astronauts who were whirring around the planet at thousands of miles per hour. Apollo 7’s ten-day to-do list included separating the command and service modules, turning the spacecraft around, and simulating docking. The ailing astronauts did not fare as well as their spacecraft during the mission—they learned that blowing one’s nose in outer space was painful, as fluids don’t drain easily in zero gravity.
On day three, the crew conducted the first-ever live television broadcast from space and held up signs with handwritten messages written on them. Commander Schirra’s read, Keep those cards and letters coming in, folks.
At reentry, after almost eleven days in space and still sick, the astronauts refused to wear their helmets as they returned to Earth. They needed to be able to reach their faces to blow their noses during descent. Otherwise, the resulting pressure could burst their eardrums.
On October 22, they splashed down safely, having successfully orbited the Earth 163 times. Their mission complete, the Apollo 7 astronauts prepared to watch as the next crew took their positions on the launchpad forty days later.
Apollo 8: “Round the Moon and Back”
DECEMBER 21–27, 1968
Astronauts James A. Lovell, Frank Borman, and William A. Anders would not be home for the holidays in 1968. Instead, they were aboard the Apollo 8 capsule, as the first crewed mission to be carried into space by the Saturn V and the first to orbit the moon. “Everyone was motivated. Everyone was dedicated,” Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman said. “The basic idea was to beat the Russians to the moon. . . . We were determined to meet it—to beat it.”
Their flight path carried them on a six-day trip from Earth, around the moon and back. Their mission goals included testing navigation procedures, communications, and photographing the lunar surface. Future Apollo missions would need this information to land. Years later, astronaut James Lovell recalled the feeling of looking down at the moon from their capsule: “We were like school kids looking through a candy store window, staring at the unnamed craters as they slowly passed us by.”
During the flight’s fourth orbit around the moon, Borman spotted an object outside the spacecraft that forever changed the way humanity would see itself. “Suddenly I looked out the window and here was this gorgeous orb coming up and I thought holy moly,” Borman recalled. It was the Earth; a lush blue-white-and-green-swirled marble suspended in the complete blackness of the universe. “Oh, my God! Look at that picture over there! Here’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!” Anders said as he snapped a picture through the window of the capsule.
No human being had ever seen the planet from this perspective. As Anders continued to snap dozens of pictures, the astronauts stared in wonder. They were hundreds of thousands of miles from everything and everyone they knew, risking their lives in the name of exploration. “The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth,” Lovell said. The photograph, later named Earthrise, became the most famous photograph ever taken in space. The image marked the beginning of the environmental movement. For the first time, people could see how fragile the Earth looked in the emptiness of space. It had to be protected. It was home.
The Apollo 8 crew, humbled by their new experience, found it difficult to keep the emotion from their voices as they transmitted a tender message home to Earth that Christmas Eve: “From the crew of the Apollo 8 we close with good night, good luck, a merry Christmas, and God bless all of you—all of you on the good Earth.”
It was a moment of profound hope and inspiration in a year that had otherwise been, as Jim Lovell later recalled, “disastrous.” Back home, America remained at war in Vietnam.
Earthrise, as first viewed and photographed by the crew of Apollo 8.
Earlier that year, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy’s younger brother, Senator Robert Kennedy, had been assassinated. “To end the year by going around the moon on Christmas Eve,” Lovell said, “everything just fell into place.”
Apollo 9
MARCH 3, 1969
Two more successful Apollo missions followed the inspiring flight of Apollo 8. The Apollo 9 astronauts, Russell “Rusty” Schweickart, James McDivitt, and David Scott, tested both the command module and the lunar module components. While piloting them in orbit, they practiced firing the engine to bring the two modules back together. The difficult maneuver proved all the hardware was sound. Schweickart and Scott performed simultaneous EVAs (extravehicular activities), or space walks. Ten days later, Apollo 9 splashed down safely. One last test mission remained before Apollo 11 would attempt to land on the moon.
Apollo 10: Nine Miles from the Moon
MAY 18–26, 1969
The mission facing the crew of Apollo 10 astronauts Eugene Cernan, Thomas P. Stafford, and John W. Young was nothing less than the greatest dress rehearsal of the Apollo program. For the first time, the lunar module would separate from the command module to make its way toward the moon with Cernan and Stafford aboard. Young would stay behind to helm the command module.
Cernan and Stafford flew within 47,000 feet of the moon’s surface, testing landing radar and recording observations of possible Apollo 11 touchdown sites. The crew did everything but land on the moon.
“What a place!” Cernan reported to ground control as their spacecraft swept over the lunar surface. “You know, it almost looks like this is a painting.”
The flight nearly ended in disaster as procedures were under way to redock with the command module. As the lunar module’s engine fired, the moon’s horizon spun past their window six times. Their ship was spinning out of control. “I heard the thrusters start to fire,” Stafford remembered. “I heard this ba-bang, bang, bang.” His pilot’s instincts took over. Stafford hit the staging switch and went to a hard stop. With quick thinking and steady nerves, the danger passed as quickly as it came. The team re-docked with the command module. “We were fighter pilots, test pilots, so we knew what the risks were and you did everything you could to mitigate the risk. But there was a risk. We understood that,” Stafford said.
Apollo 10 was a record-setting flight, returning to Earth in forty-two hours, at a speed of 24,791 miles per hour, the fastest speed attained by a human vehicle.
The Apollo 10 astronauts debriefed the Apollo 11 crew on their findings. “We had all the procedures worked out . . . down to the last fifty thousand feet,” Stafford remembered. The Apollo 11 crew would have to take it from there.
Following the deaths of the Apollo 1 astronauts, the well-documented test flights that followed went down in history books as huge successes in the American space program. The United States had overcome the tragedy and continued on the road to the stars.
Unbeknownst to the United States, the Russians watched the Apollo test flights with grim resignation. The Americans were leaving them in the dust of the Kazakhstan desert. Apollo 8 was a three-part defeat for the Soviet space program: the first-ever successful flight around the moon, the public reaction to the Earthrise photo, and the astronauts’ heartfelt message delivered from space on Christmas Eve. It was a stunning victory of both science and propaganda. Everything was falling into place for von Braun and NASA. Korolev’s towering N-1 rocket was the Soviets’ last hope.
Korolev’s Moon Shot
By the time the N-1 was stacked on the Baikonur launchpad for its first uncrewed flight in February 1969, the chief designer had been dead for three years. Korolev’s moon rocket steamed and hissed in the cold Kazakhstan air. Vasily Mishin’s crews had been working twenty-four-hour shifts to prepare the rocket for launch. There had been no money to build expensive test stands. They would know if the rocket worked when it launched.
A mockup of the N-1 rocket at Baikonur, 1967.
At ignition, the N-1’s thirty-engine cluster fired and the rocket began to rise, along with the morale of the exhausted Soviet engineering team. “In those first few moments there was a sort of uplifting feeling. Yes! It’s taken off! Yes! It hasn’t blown up on the spot! This was already a great victory,” engineer Boris Chertok recalled. But the rocket exploded one minute into the flight. It was later determined that a small piece of metal had been sucked into one of the rocket’s engines, causing it to malfunction. In the incident report, the Soviets adhered to their strict policy of secrecy when it came to mistakes and accidents. The result was a feeble and almost comical understatement of the accident’s true cause. The report’s author wrote that the engine was “sensitive to incoming foreign objects.”
