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"Flawless execution"? Apollo 1 burned three astronauts to death during a rehearsal test. They had astronauts back on top of a rocket in under twenty months. Ac
by eropple 4y ago
"Flawless execution"? Apollo 1 burned three astronauts to death during a rehearsal test. They had astronauts back on top of a rocket in under twenty months.
Acknowledging that their risk tolerances were higher than politics necessitates today doesn't "diminish" anything.
- cratermoon 4y ago> They had astronauts back on top of a rocket in under twenty months. In a redesigned spacecraft (based on the Block II that was already in development) that replaced the pure oxygen environment at launch with a Nitrogen/Oxygen atmosphere that was slowly bled off to pure O2 at the desired partial pressure once it was in space.
- p_l 4y agoSome of the critical changes were previously vetoed until Apollo 1 confirmed the worth of doors that opened to outside rather than inside, despite increased weight of the sealing mechanism.
- cratermoon 4y agoAnd yet the inward-opening door was itself a response to a near-fatal failure of the hatch on Liberty Bell 7. That almost killed the second American in space, Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom. Grissom was one of the three astronauts that died in the Apollo 1 fire.