What was Apollo One?

Apollo One was the name of the first planned space mission Apollo/Saturn, which ended tragically during the training exercise on January 27, 1967. Apollo was the name given by missions followed by Mercury missions. These missions were an attempt to send space vehicles with a crew to land on the moon, although Apollo One should only be a test mission to evaluate the assumed capabilities of the Saturn rocket and the newly designed command module. Unfortunately, this first Apollo mission was disastrous and resulted in the death of three beloved astronauts: Virgil Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chapee. The sudden fire in the cockpit quickly absorbed the command module in which Grissom, White and Chapee were sealed. Astronautinelze to open a hatch that opened in the place out and were quickly killed in flames.

The cause of the fire in Apoll was the result of several things. First, Apollo One was a pure oxygen environment that IGNIt was a flammable nature of oxygen. Secondly, a spark in an uninsulated cording module was enough to start an uncontrollable fire. There were also many flammable objects on board Apollo, including Velcro, which quickly allowed to spread fire. The fire spread so quickly and quickly that astronauts had no opportunity to escape.

Apollo one disaster was daunting for many in the space program. What can be the most daunting is the claim that it could be prevented. In 1961, Russian cosmonaut Valentin Bondarenko was killed in a similar accident. This was hidden from the public and especially the US because of the "race" to get to the Moon and because the Soviets did not want anyone to know about their failures. Some argue that if Soviet/American relations were better, the US might be aware of the potential mortality of pure oxygen, as in Apollo.

Despite the loss of three brave men, Apollo One was used very much as intended: to revise the spacecraftApollo missions for greater safety to astronauts. Changes were oxygen mixing with nitrogen, reducing flammable materials in the spacecraft, repairing more than 1000 problems with cabling, insulating plumbing and cabling, and reworking of the hatch opening out. NASA believes that some of these changes were helpful in bringing thirteen Apollo crew safely home, despite significant mechanical problems. If the same Apollo module was used for Apollo, it would almost certainly result in the death of this crew.