Word: apollo
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...spacecraft have their own personal quirks, and 204 had been balky from the start. As an Apollo engineer said: "The first article from the factory cannot come out without birth pains." The spacecraft gave repeated trouble. The nozzle of its big engine shattered during one test. The heat shield of the command module split wide open and the ship sank like a stone when it was dropped at high speed into a water tank. Certain kinds of fuel caused ruptures in attitude-control fuel tanks. The cooling system failed, causing a two-month delay for redesign. But all the bugs...
...first man ever to journey twice into space. Aided by Co-Pilot John Young, he scored yet another space first when he took over the controls himself, skill- fully piloted the craft through a series of tricky orbit-changing maneuvers. After that success, Grissom seemed to loosen up. The Apollo flight would have made him the only man to enter space three times. Hours before last week's disaster, Apollo Program Manager Shea remarked: "Gus really wants this flight. He's determined to keep that thing up there (16 days...
Roger Chaffee, the rookie of the Apollo team, joined the Navy after his graduation (aeronautical engineering) from Purdue in 1957, logged more than 1,800 hours flying time in jets before becoming an astronaut in 1963. During training for the Apollo mission, the boyishly handsome Chaffee came to be especially close to Grissom, at times even seemed to ape some of Gus's mannerisms. Though he prudently stayed in the shadow of his more experienced crewmates, Chaffee shared their burning ambition to land on the moon; in the den of his Houston home hangs a map of the lunar...
There is a second Apollo capsule waiting to be shipped to Cape Kennedy from North American Aviation's plant in Downey, Calif. There is also a back-up crew-led by Navy Captain Walter Schirra-to man the shot. But there is certain to be a long delay, for scientists must be absolutely certain that the cause of the fire is not a congenital weakness in the ship. Beyond that, it will take months to get the new capsule thoroughly tested and in position atop her Saturn 1-B. The earliest possible date that Apollo 204 could be rescheduled...
Died. Lieut. Colonel Virgil I. ("Gus") Grissom, 40, Lieut. Colonel Edward H. White, 36, and Lieut. Commander Roger B. Chaffee, 31; in an explosion while testing their Apollo spacecraft; at Cape Kennedy, Fla. (see THE NATION...